While President Donald Trump prepares to travel to Alaska on Friday to address the future of Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the family of Texas man who meets the longest prison sentence of any American who currently stops in Russia has the hope that another exchange of prisoners between the two nations is on the agenda.
“We expect better relations between the United States and Russia that hopefully will lead to my brother’s release,” said Margaret Aaron, one of David Barnes’s two sisters, to ABC News presenter, Gio Benítez, in an interview on Wednesday.
Barnes, who grew up in Alabama, has been arrested in Moscow since January 2022 and is currently serving a sentence of 21.5 years.
“He’s hanging there,” Aaron said. “It has been extremely strong during the last three and a half years. We are extremely proud of it and has continued with the hope that something happens.”
Unlike other Americans who have been held in Russia, Barnes is accused of Russian prosecutors of crimes in the United States, not Russia. However, the US police had no participation in the prosecution of Barnes in Moscow.
Barnes was convicted by a Russian judge for abusing his two children years before in Texas, but prosecutors in Montgomery County, Texas, told ABC News that the police in the state of the lonely star investigated the claims after they were reported by the ex -wife of Barnes and found no evidence to support them.
“I know that everyone who heard and investigated the accusations of child sexual abuse raised by Mrs. Barnes during the children’s custody procedures did not consider that they were credible,” said ABC News, head of the office of the office of the office of the Office of the District Office of Montgomery County, ABC.
David Barnes appears in court in Russia on February 13, 2024
ABC News
“He has been suffering,” Aaron said on Wednesday. “It’s innocent.”
Barnes’s ex -wife, Svetlana Kptyaeva, has argued that Barnes abused her children while the children grew up in Texas suburbs years ago. Kptyaeva was accused of interference of serious crime with the custody of the children after allegedly bringing the children of Texas to Russia in 2019, while a custody dispute of children between her and Barnes developed.
In 2020, a Texas Family Court appointed Barnes as the main guardian of his children, but since Kptyaeva had taken them out of the country, Barnes’s family says he decided to travel to Russia after Covid-19 restrictions were raised to try to fight for the rights of custody or similar visits in the Moscow judicial system.
Barnes was arrested weeks after arriving in Russia and has been behind bars since then. In April, a judge in Moscow denied the appeal of Barnes of his conviction.
“Actually, we really need to be designated as unfairly,” Aaron said. “Hopefully, to begin that process, we need the help of Trump and secretary [Marco] Blond “.
The next meeting between Trump and Putin on American soil is produced four months after Russian officials released Ballerina Ksenia Karelina to the United States through an exchange of prisoners.
After Karelina’s return to the United States, he wrote a letter to Trump asking for Barnes’s launching along with American companions Robert Gilman and Andre Khacatoorian. Trump published the letter on social networks.
“David Barnes, a father of two children from Texas, has been arrested in Russia for too long under the positions already demonstrated because they are false, and it is time to be released,” said American senator John Cornyn of Texas in a statement At the moment. “I urge President Trump and Secretary Rubio to prioritize efforts to bring David and all Americans detained unfairly detained worldwide at home.”
Other Americans who were previously held in Russia, such as Paul Whelan, Trevor Reed and Brittney Griner, were transferred to criminal colonies away from Moscow after their sentences, but Barnes has been arrested in the capital of Russia since he was arrested.
“We have visited Mr. Barnes eight times since his arrest in January 2022,” said a spokesman for the United States Department to ABC News. “Our last visit to Mr. Barnes in detention was in May 2025.”
With all eyes in Anchorage before this week’s presidential summit, Barnes’s family and friends in the United States will pay close attention.
“David’s strength keeps us going,” Aaron said.
