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Kseniia Petrova, a Harvard researcher, still faces criminal charges for failing to declare scientific samples she was carrying in her suitcase.
June 12, 2025Updated 1:16 p.m. ET
Kseniia Petrova, the Russian scientist who spent four months in detention after failing to declare scientific samples she was carrying into the country, was freed on bail from federal custody on Thursday by a magistrate judge in Boston.
Since her detention at Boston’s Logan Airport in February, Ms. Petrova has been transferred to detention centers in Vermont, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and, briefly, Rhode Island, before returning to Boston early Thursday.
“Welcome to Massachusetts,” said the judge, Judith G. Dein.
Ms. Petrova, who was handcuffed and dressed in an orange jumpsuit for the hearing, emerged from custody in a T-shirt that read “Hakuna matata,” and embraced Marc Kirschner, the scientist who heads her laboratory at Harvard Medical School.
“Obviously, it’s hard to explain why someone like Kseniia had to be jailed for four months,” said Gregory Romanovsky, her immigration lawyer. He added that her release “means that the legal process, even though it may be slow, is working, which is great.”
Ms. Petrova’s release is a victory, but a temporary one. She is still facing a two-pronged prosecution: The Trump administration began deportation proceedings against her in February, and around three months later, after she challenged the move in court, filed criminal smuggling charges against her.
Lawyers for the government have said they intend to deport Ms. Petrova to Russia, a country she fled for political reasons in 2022. She has said that if she returns, she fears arrest or even death because of her activism.
