Against all odds: SA boxer wins fight to free girlfriend from Russian prison

South African boxer Chris van Heerden, a former world welterweight champion, has just won the biggest fight of his career — to get his girlfriend Ksenia Karelina released from a Russian prison, where she had served 15 months of a 12-year sentence.

“That is what we do as South Africans. We know how to fight,” a delighted Van Heerden told Daily Maverick at the weekend.

On Thursday, Karelina, a dual Russian-American citizen and a ballerina and aesthetician, was released by the Russians in Abu Dhabi in a prisoner swap for the Russian-German national Arthur Petrov, who had been in a US prison. US President Donald Trump hinted that the swap was a confidence-building measure towards the peace deal he is pursuing in the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Karelina, who lives in Los Angeles with Van Heerden, was arrested at the Yekaterinburg airport in January 2024 when she arrived to visit her family. She was first charged, bizarrely, with “hooliganism” and then, more seriously, with treason. The Russian FSB intelligence agency accused her of “proactively” collecting money for a Ukrainian organisation that was supplying gear to Kyiv’s forces because she had donated $51.80 to a US charity providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine. The FSB found a record of it on her phone.

In August last year, she was convicted of treason and sentenced to 12 years in jail. Petrov, the prisoner she was swapped for, had been arrested in Cyprus in August 2023 at the request of the US on charges of smuggling sensitive microelectronics to Russia — some of them with military applications — and extradited to the US a year later. He faced 20 years in jail, said the FSB in a statement confirming his release.

When we spoke to Van Heerden last year as Karelina was about to stand trial, he was feeling badly let down by the system after Karelina had been excluded from a swap of several American and Russian prisoners.

“I’m just a guy that grew up in Meyerton. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m trying my best,” he said then.

“It’s a long story how it happened,” Van Heerden told Daily Maverick at the weekend. “My very good friend, Hollywood producer Peter Burg, was heavily involved with me in trying to secure the release of Ksenia. Peter Burg used all the angles he could use. And Peter is well-connected to UFC [Ultimate Fighting Championship] President Dana White.

“So Peter Burg reached out to Dana, who was well motivated as well. Dana reached out to President Donald Trump on a direct phone call. Dana pushed, and we secured a prisoner swap, thanks to Peter Burg and Dana White. But first and foremost, my thanks to my Lord Saviour Jesus Christ for answering my prayers.”

SA boxing champ Chris van Heerden greets his girlfriend Ksenia Karelina on the tarmac at Washington DC airport after she was released from a Russian prison. [Picture supplied]

Trump told journalists after Karelina’s release that “it was at the request of a very good friend of mine, Dana White”, who had called him to say Karelina was a friend of one of the UFC fighters.

“And we spoke to President [Vladimir] Putin about it, and they made a deal and they released the young ballerina. And she is now out, and that was good. And we hope that we’re going to be able to make a deal relatively soon with Russia and Ukraine to stop the fighting.”

Van Heerden noted that the prisoner exchange had happened in Abu Dhabi. “She got on a private jet and flew to Washington, DC. That is where I waited for her on the tarmac. She arrived in DC. It was unreal, unreal. I was very, very nervous. But when she came down from that plane and hugged me, it felt real. The nerves were gone.

Military hospital

“But she looked good, for someone who was in prison for 15 months, she looked really good. And my nerves disappeared. After DC, we got on a private jet and we flew to San Antonio, Texas, where she was put in a military hospital. She’s still in hospital and will stay in hospital for the next, maybe, week, 10 days, where she is now being handled, taken care of, evaluated. All medical procedures are being taken care of. She’s traumatised. There’s a psychologist she’s seeing.

“I’m currently also in San Antonio on the military base in a hotel. I get to go visit her twice a day. I will be going again soon. I’m overwhelmed. She is amazing. She is so strong, she is so beautiful, she is so inspiring. She is so kind.

“You’ve got to see this woman. She is so kind to absolutely everyone. This is a love story, a love story to be told. And I really, really hope that my love story, Ksenia’s love story, can inspire people to keep fighting. If you love someone, what do you do? You fight for them. You don’t give up on them, no matter what.

“If you truly care for someone and you love them, you’d better fight for them. That is what we do as South Africans. We know how to fight. My dad raised a man in me that knows how to fight. If there is one thing I can do, it is fight. But I would have been lost without my faith. There is power in prayer.”

Van Heerden was born and educated in the small town of Meyerton, south of Johannesburg.

After school, he became a professional boxer. In 2011, he won the vacant IBO world welterweight title, then retained it in fights against Argentinian Sebastián Luján and Briton Matthew Hatton.

“I had three world title fights. I won all three of them,” said Van Heerden.

But his dream had always been to move to LA — partly, to prove he could make it away from home — so on Christmas Day 2013 he boarded a plane and flew to that city.

He met Karelina in a spa in LA in 2020 during the Covid pandemic. She was born and raised in Russia and moved to the US in 2012. She received US citizenship in 2022

They had just moved into an apartment together when she flew to Russia to meet her family in Yekaterinburg last January. DM