Dana White, CEO of the UFC, told NPR’s Steve Inskeep in a May 2026 interview that he used his personal relationship with President Donald Trump to help secure the release of a woman held in a Russian penal colony. The case centers on Ksenia Karelina, a Russian-American dual citizen who was sentenced to 12 years in prison over a $51.80 charitable donation.
Dana White Reveals How a Phone Call to Trump Got a Woman Out of a Russian Prison
The interview was conducted as part of NPR‘s Newsmakers video podcast at Newark’s Prudential Center, the night before a UFC event. Inskeep and White were discussing immigration policy under the Trump administration when the conversation took a turn toward what White had quietly done behind the scenes months earlier.
“There was a girl who was a fighter’s wife. She was Russian, but she has American citizenship. She went back to visit her family in Russia and the military kicked her door in, in the middle of the night, and arrested her. They found that she had donated $15 to Ukraine, and they arrested her and had her in a Russian prison. President Trump, I called him, and he got her released.”
When Inskeep asked how Trump had managed it, White replied simply: “He called Putin, I would assume.”
Who Was Ksenia Karelina?
The woman White was referring to was Ksenia Karelina, a 34-year-old Russian-American. She lived in Los Angeles, where she worked as an aesthetician managing a Beverly Hills spa and also trained as an amateur ballerina. Her boyfriend at the time, Chris Van Heerden, is a South African professional boxer and former IBO welterweight champion who competed at the top level of the sport.
Karelina flew to Russia in early January 2024 to visit her 90-year-old grandmother and other family members in Yekaterinburg. She had been a U.S. citizen since 2021 and did not believe the trip posed any risk. Van Heerden, who had planned to propose to her on her return, bought her the ticket himself for her birthday in December.
When Karelina landed in Yekaterinburg on January 17, 2024, Russian customs officials searched her phone at the airport. They found a record of a Venmo transfer of $51.80 made on February 24, 2022, the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, to a New York-based nonprofit called Razom for Ukraine. Razom describes itself as a humanitarian aid organization supporting Ukrainian civilians. It denied Russian claims that it funded weapons or ammunition.
Karelina was initially detained on a minor charge of “petty hooliganism” which allowed Russian authorities to hold her while they prepared a larger case. She was formally charged under Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code with high treason, a charge that carried a sentence of between 12 years and life in prison.
Her trial began on June 20, 2024, and she admitted guilt on August 7, with her attorney advising that pleading guilty could reduce the sentence. On August 15, 2024, Judge Andrei Mineev, the same judge who sentenced Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, handed her 12 years in a general regime penal colony. She had been held for 439 days by the time of her release.
Van Heerden spent over a year raising awareness and pushing for Karelina’s release, including appearing on national media outlets. The efforts under the previous U.S. administration went nowhere. It was during a UFC fight card in Sydney, Australia that the chain of events leading to her freedom began.
White described the moment at a post-fight press conference in Kansas City in April 2025, before the NPR interview:
“When we had the fight in Australia in Sydney, I got a call from a friend of mine who asked if he could come by my hotel room and talk to me. He told me the story and then asked if I would go to the president, because I guess they’d been working for a year with the old administration, trying to get her released and couldn’t get it done. So they asked if I would talk to Trump and I said ‘Of course’. So I called him and he said ‘yeah, let me see what I can do’. And literally in three weeks, he had her out.” [Ht BJPenn]
On April 10, 2025, Karelina was released as part of a prisoner exchange brokered in Abu Dhabi, with the United Arab Emirates acting as mediator.
At a Cabinet meeting on the same day, Trump confirmed White‘s role publicly:
“Dana White called me and he said it’s the friend or the relationship of one of the fighters, UFC or one of the fighters, and Dana is an incredible guy, and we spoke to President Putin about it, and they made a deal. They released the young ballerina and she is now out.”
White, understated about his part in the whole episode, said:
“She FaceTimed me two days ago. What an incredible, sweet, positive human being she is. President Trump and Putin, give them both credit for getting her out… I didn’t do anything but make a call.”
