Daughter of U.S. Citizen Sentenced to Six Years in Russia Appeals to Trump

Anastasia Antonov has written a letter to President Trump asking him to press for the release of her father, Aleksandr Antonov, who was arrested by Russian border officers on March 5, 2025, and later sentenced to six years in prison. U.S. passport and Telegram messages containing anti-Russian sentiment during a passport check that day.

U.S. citizen, who immigrated from the Soviet Union in the 1990s, was convicted on charges related to inciting terrorism and extremism. U.S. citizen, described her frustration with the slow pace of State Department efforts and said she "felt it was time" to elevate her father's imprisonment directly to the president.

Anastasia Antonov shared the letter with CBS News and handed it to Sebastian Gorka on May 6, 2026, after he was honored at the Foley Foundation's Freedom Awards dinner along with Deputy Envoy for Hostage Affairs Dustin Stewart. U.S. officials told CBS News there is an internal State Department debate over designating Aleksandr Antonov as wrongfully detained.

Several officials recommended in a memo to Secretary of State Marco Rubio's top counselor that he had been wrongly detained. U.S. diplomacy on the Ukraine war.

The authority to designate someone as wrongfully detained rests with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Roger Carstens, a CBS News contributor and former Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, said that so-called split memos can complicate matters and make it harder to persuade a secretary of state.

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff. Steve Witkoff was instructed to bring up Antonov's case with Putin adviser Kiril Dmitriev.