Federal prosecutors in the United States have decided to drop the case against Russian scientist Ksenia Petrova, who was detained in Boston in 2025 while carrying embryos of African clawed frogs. Her defense team argued that the prosecution was politically motivated by the Trump administration.
US federal authorities have decided to terminate the criminal case against Russian scientist Ksenia Petrova, who had been conducting research at Harvard University. According to Reuters, the charges concerned the illegal importation of African clawed frog embryos into the country. The case was reconsidered after the defense argued that Petrova was the target of political persecution initiated by the administration of President Donald Trump. Boston-based prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the case after a federal judge granted the defense access to evidence suggesting that the Russian scientist had been subjected to unjust prosecution. Ksenia Petrova maintained that her case had been singled out by the authorities from among similar incidents and that the charges were politically motivated. A key turning point in the proceedings was a court ruling that allowed the defense to obtain the necessary documentation; consequently, the prosecution requested that the case be dropped.
In 2025, at a checkpoint in Boston’s airport, US border officials detained the Russian citizen after discovering a container of biological material—embryos of African clawed frogs—in her luggage. During questioning, Petrova stated that she was unsure whether such items needed to be declared upon entry into the country.
Some time later, in June 2025, the scientist was released from custody. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Ksenia Petrova previously worked at the Institute of Gene Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and also served as a bioinformatician at the N. P. Bochkov Research Centre for Medical Genetics.
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