She had been compelled to leave Russia due to her outspoken anti-war stance, which could have led to criminal charges back home. While her surname was not disclosed in the original posts, Mozhem Obyasnit’ was able to locate her Facebook page, suggesting her name is Kseniya (Kseniia) Petrova, a graduate of MIPT (Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology). Her page includes multiple posts criticizing the Russian government and denouncing the invasion of Ukraine.
Petrova’s attorney, Gregory Romanovsky, argued that her failure to declare an item at customs — a violation typically punishable by a fine of up to $500 and confiscation of the item — did not give U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) the legal grounds to revoke her visa.
… the visa was revoked and Kseniia was detained after undeclared frog embryo samples were found in her luggage.
Leon Peshkin, Petrova’s supervisor at Harvard Medical School, to The Guardian that he had asked her to collect a box of frog embryo samples from colleagues in France and bring them back to the lab — calling it “a huge mistake.”
According to Peshkin, the import of the samples was legal, but Petrova made an error in completing the U.S. customs declaration, which led to her being stopped by customs officers upon arrival at Boston’s Logan Airport — and denied re-entry into the country.
Petrova was initially given two options after being stopped by CBP: return to France and reapply for a visa, or face deportation and a five-year entry ban. She chose to return to France, but when she informed a CBP officer that she feared political persecution if sent back to Russia, the agency opted to detain her instead, according to a petition filed by her attorney, Gregory Romanovsky.
