Dana White, CEO of the UFC, informed NPR’s Steve Inskeep in a Might 2026 interview that he used his private relationship with President Donald Trump to assist safe the discharge of a girl held in a Russian penal colony. The case facilities on Ksenia Karelina, a Russian-American twin citizen who was sentenced to 12 years in jail over a $51.80 charitable donation.
Dana White Reveals How a Telephone Name to Trump Received a Girl Out of a Russian Jail
The interview was performed as a part of NPR‘s Newsmakers video podcast at Newark’s Prudential Heart, the evening earlier than a UFC occasion. Inskeep and White had been discussing immigration coverage underneath the Trump administration when the dialog took a flip towards what White had quietly performed behind the scenes months earlier.
“There was a woman who was a fighter’s spouse. She was Russian, however she has American citizenship. She went again to go to her household in Russia and the army kicked her door in, in the midst of the evening, and arrested her. They discovered that she had donated $15 to Ukraine, and so they arrested her and had her in a Russian jail. President Trump, I known as him, and he received her launched.”
When Inskeep requested how Trump had managed it, White replied merely: “He known as Putin, I might assume.”
Who Was Ksenia Karelina?
The lady White was referring to was Ksenia Karelina, a 34-year-old Russian-American. She lived in Los Angeles, the place she labored as an aesthetician managing a Beverly Hills spa and likewise skilled as an novice ballerina. Her boyfriend on the time, Chris Van Heerden, is a South African skilled boxer and former IBO welterweight champion who competed on the prime degree of the game.
Karelina flew to Russia in early January 2024 to go to her 90-year-old grandmother and different members of the family in Yekaterinburg. She had been a U.S. citizen since 2021 and didn’t consider the journey posed any danger. Van Heerden, who had deliberate to suggest to her on her return, purchased her the ticket himself for her birthday in December.
When Karelina landed in Yekaterinburg on January 17, 2024, Russian customs officers searched her telephone on the airport. They discovered a file of a Venmo transfer of $51.80 made on February 24, 2022, the primary day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, to a New York-based nonprofit known as Razom for Ukraine. Razom describes itself as a humanitarian support group supporting Ukrainian civilians. It denied Russian claims that it funded weapons or ammunition.
Karelina was initially detained on a minor cost of “petty hooliganism” which allowed Russian authorities to carry her whereas they ready a bigger case. She was formally charged underneath Article 275 of the Russian Legal Code with excessive treason, a cost that carried a sentence of between 12 years and life in jail.
Her trial started on June 20, 2024, and she or he admitted guilt on August 7, together with her lawyer advising that pleading responsible may scale back the sentence. On August 15, 2024, Choose Andrei Mineev, the identical decide who sentenced Wall Avenue Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, handed her 12 years in a common regime penal colony. She had been held for 439 days by the point of her launch.
Van Heerden spent over a 12 months elevating consciousness and pushing for Karelina’s release, together with showing on nationwide media retailers. The efforts underneath the earlier U.S. administration went nowhere. It was throughout a UFC struggle card in Sydney, Australia that the chain of occasions resulting in her freedom started.
White described the second at a post-fight press convention in Kansas Metropolis in April 2025, earlier than the NPR interview:
“Once we had the struggle in Australia in Sydney, I received a name from a good friend of mine who requested if he may come by my lodge room and speak to me. He informed me the story after which requested if I might go to the president, as a result of I assume they’d been working for a 12 months with the previous administration, attempting to get her launched and couldn’t get it performed. So that they requested if I might speak to Trump and I stated ‘In fact’. So I known as him and he stated ‘yeah, let me see what I can do’. And actually in three weeks, he had her out.” [Ht BJPenn]
On April 10, 2025, Karelina was launched as a part of a prisoner alternate brokered in Abu Dhabi, with the United Arab Emirates performing as mediator.
At a Cupboard assembly on the identical day, Trump confirmed White‘s position publicly:
“Dana White known as me and he stated it’s the good friend or the connection of one of many fighters, UFC or one of many fighters, and Dana is an unbelievable man, and we spoke to President Putin about it, and so they made a deal. They launched the younger ballerina and she or he is now out.”
White, understated about his half in the entire episode, stated:
“She FaceTimed me two days in the past. What an unbelievable, candy, constructive human being she is. President Trump and Putin, give them each credit score for getting her out… I didn’t do something however make a name.”
