The 30-year-old gun activist and alleged agent of Russian senator Alexander Torshin would soon be released from US prison. She was sentenced to 18 months in prison after she was found guilty of being a Russian agent and trying to influence US policies.
Maria Butina tried to get into NRA (National Rifle Association), one of the big contributors for US republican politicians. Maria was a gun enthusiast from childhood and founded a lobby group called ‘Right to bear Arms’.After completing her graduation in Politics from the University of Siberia, she got linked to Alexander Torshin, the powerful former Russian senator deputy chairman of the Russian Central Bank.
Later her connection with Torshin was instrumental as she tried gaining access to NRA as she started dating US Republican lobbyist Paul Erickson. She used her NRA links to shape the US Republican Party’s foreign policy and their traditionally hostile stance toward Russia. Butina was arrested by the FBI in July 2018 and charged with acting as an agent of the Russian Federation “without prior notification”.The Russian government had snubbed the case against Butina as fabricated and Putin himself commented her sentence to prison as ‘Outrageous’.
Butina will be released from a low-security prison in Tallahassee and transferred to a migration center in the city of Miami to be deported to Russia. Two US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will escort her until she boards the Moscow-bound leg of her journey. Russian officials hope to receive her in Moscow on Saturday.
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