Protesters Rally in Burlington for Detained Russian Harvard Researcher Facing Smuggling Charge

Protesters gathered outside the federal courthouse in Burlington Wednesday for the second week in a row, this time in support of a Russian researcher from Harvard who was detained by ICE. Kseniia Petrova, a medical researcher, was accused of lying to federal officers about frog embryos she was carrying on a flight back from Paris to Logan that she allegedly didn’t declare. Her lawyer says that not declaring the items should not have led to her being detained and having her research visa cancelled. The government says it plans to deport Petrova back to Russia, a country she fled in 2022 after protesting the war in Ukraine. Wednesday’s court appearance before Judge Christina Reiss was the first step to have her brought from a detention center in Louisiana to Vermont, where she was briefly detained. Jared Carter, a professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School says Vermont became the venue after ICE decided to use it as a waypoint for detainees. Petrova is facing a federal smuggling charge, and is scheduled to have another bail hearing later this month.