Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina has pleaded guilty to treason charges after she was arrested for donating money to a charity supporting Ukraine.

Russian prosecutors are seeking a 15-year sentence after the security services accused Ms Karelina of collecting money that was used to purchase tactical supplies for the Ukrainian army.

She was detained by authorities in Yekaterinburg, about 1,600km (1,000 miles) east of Moscow after a family visit in February.

The sentence comes one week after Russia and the West carried out the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War, where 24 people jailed in seven different countries were exchanged.

Ms Karelina’s lawyer said the prosecutors’ request for a 15-year sentence in a penal colony was too severe as the defendant had cooperated with the investigation.

Mikhail Mushailov also said it was “impossible” for Ms Karelina to have been included in the recent prisoner exchange, because an exchange can only happen once the court verdict comes into force.

  • jet@hackertalks.com
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    3 months ago

    When people ask why we need digital money with high privacy guarantees, this is why.

    Taler, credit cards, money transfers… all allow have the structure to allow this to happen.

    • corroded@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I’d consider any of the current cryptocurrencies to be overall failures. They’re a way for tech-bros to piss away money on “investments” and for Chinese-owned mining firms to make a profit at the expense of the environment.

      I agree that an anonymous digital currency is a fantastic idea, but how do you keep it from just turning into another Bitcoin?

        • corroded@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          The page you linked talks about privacy, but it makes no mention of abuse by investors or the environmental impact of miners.

          Nobody will deny that cryptocurrency is good for privacy, but that doesn’t negate all of its damaging aspects.

          • poVoq@slrpnk.netM
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            3 months ago

            Most crypto-currencies are horrible for privacy, as every transaction is public and is permanently linked to a specific wallet. So the only privacy preserving aspect is that it isn’t always easily possible to link a wallet to a person. One slip-up linking a payment to a person (like giving an address to ship for example, having your device confiscated, or you know… exchanging fiat money at a legal exchange) and all your past transactions can be linked to you easily.

    • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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      3 months ago

      Yeah, now you know that charity actively helps Ukraine if russia is all whiney about it

    • rhabarba@feddit.org
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      3 months ago

      It is probably legal in other countries, so I don’t think this is as brave as you make it sound.

      • Biezelbob@programming.dev
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        3 months ago

        Doesnt matter, money goes to ukraine, supports Ukrainians (and troops). Doesnt have to be much.

        I dont do this because its brave but because of the gesture and helping Ukraine. Its disposable income so I can mis it but even a very small amount makes a difference if a lot of people act on donating.

        Slava Ukraini

    • divergency@scribe.disroot.org
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      3 months ago

      Donate to what? For a bunch of army men to kill a bunch of other army men? Kinda pointless. I’d better donate to something that aims to prevent wars and not to sustain them. NATO can end the war any day, but they don’t. No amount of money will outrank NATO’s will, unless those would be all China’s money

      • rhabarba@feddit.org
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        3 months ago

        “I like criminals if the victim is someone I don’t like!”

        (Almost) Nobody here likes autocrats, my friend. But I guess everyone here has a problem with people who violate the law. Now I can see that the laws in Russia are not what you, personally, think is right. FWIW, each country has laws which other countries don’t agree with.

        • Cobratattoo@feddit.org
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          3 months ago

          But I guess everyone here has a problem with people who violate the law.

          That’s stupid. You can use this argument to justify basically everything, including Nazi Germany.

        • federal reverse@feddit.orgM
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          3 months ago

          That’s a horrible take. Most people don’t care about whether things are legal, they care about whether things are morally right.

          I’ll note that I don’t have a legal background, so the following is largely intuition.

          Law is usually supposed to codify moral behavior. It’s a way to help different people talk about right/wrong and help them share moral concepts. So far, so good. However, not only does law fall short in terms of codifying moral behavior quite frequently, we also start from our morals and cross-check whether law aligns with those.

          • rhabarba@feddit.org
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            3 months ago

            Most people don’t care about whether things are legal, they care about whether things are morally right.

            That sounds right at first, but you fail to realise that morality is not an objectively measurable unit. Whose morality should apply to everyone? Yours? Mine? The Russian ones? Why?