"Khavana's boyfriend, Chris van Heerden, denounced the verdict in an interview with CBS on Thursday and described how he had bought her airline ticket to Russia despite being "uncomfortable" about her return home.

"This whole trial is bogus," he told the network's CBS Mornings programme. "After being sentenced to 12 years, I'm trying to make sense of this.

"She's an American citizen that made a $51.80 cent donation as an American citizen in Los Angeles, [to] exercise her first amendment rights. She has done nothing wrong. The donation was to Ukraine, so she's been charged with treason for funding the enemy state."

He said Khavana had made the donation at a humanitarian event in 2022 in Los Angeles but was charged under a Russian law passed the following year."