Maria Butina

Maria Valeryevna Butina (Мари́я Вале́рьевна Бу́тина, sometimes transliterated as Mariya Butina; born November 10, 1988) is a Russian politician, political activist, journalist, and former entrepreneur who was convicted in 2018 of acting as an unregistered foreign agent of Russia within the United States.

Butina worked as an assistant for Aleksandr Torshin; a former member of the Federation Council, member of Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, and deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia.

Butina was born on November 10, 1988, in the Siberian city of Barnaul, in Altai Krai, about 210 mi east of the present Kazakhstan–Russia border.

Her mother was the chief engineer of an energy enterprise and her father Valery Viktorovich Butin was an entrepreneur who established a furniture manufacturing business in Barnaul.

She has one sister and one maternal niece, Kira.

She graduated with honors at the age of 17 from Gymnasium Number 22 with in-depth study of the English language, and from school years she strove for active public activity.

She studied political science at Altai State University and also received a teaching degree.

At age 19, she was elected to the public council of Altai Krai in the last direct election for the council.

Butina, at age 21, launched a furniture retail business in Altai Krai.

In 2011, she moved to Moscow and sold six of her seven furniture stores to start an advertising agency.

Further in 2011, Butina founded (Право на оружие), described as a Russian gun-rights organization.

She began traveling back and forth to the US, initially with Aleksandr Torshin, who was then a Senator in the Federation Council of Russia (and a half-month later became Acting Chairman/Speaker of this Senate of Russian Federation) and a leading member of United Russia.

He had hired her as his "special assistant" that year.

According to Russians interviewed by RFE/RL, the organization was notable for avoiding opposition to Putin during the 2011–2013 Russian protests, for its "quixotic" support for a cause with little public support and strong government opposition – Putin himself had told Russians "I am deeply convinced that the free flow of firearms will bring a great harm and represents a great danger for us" – for introducing legislation in the Russian parliament that "never went anywhere", and for receding from public view after Butina stepped down as its head.

According to US prosecutors who prosecuted Butina on charges of conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent, her love of guns was a ruse to advance Russia's agenda within the Republican Party.

Anders Åslund described Right to Bear Arms as a "front organization with the purpose of infiltrating American groups and forging cooperation with the National Rifle Association of America."

Torshin has attended NRA annual meetings in the United States since at least 2011.

Following the 2011 meeting, then NRA President David Keene expressed his support for Torshin's "endeavors" and extended an invitation to the 2012 meeting.

In 2012, they lobbied the council to expand gun rights.

In 2013, she met Republican political operative Paul Erickson in Russia.

The two became close, started dating, and eventually moved in together.

Butina resigned from her position as the head of Right to Bear Arms in late 2014.

In 2015, she emailed him a description of a proposed project to influence the Republican Party to be friendlier to Russia, through the NRA.

In January 2015, Torshin became deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia, and Butina worked as his special assistant until May 2017.

In this role, she worked to infiltrate conservative groups in the US, including the National Rifle Association, as part of an effort to promote Russian interests in the 2016 United States presidential election.

The Senate Intelligence Committee later concluded that she attempted to persuade the Trump campaign to establish a secret communications back channel with Russia.

In August 2016, she moved to the US on a student visa, and enrolled as a graduate student in International Relations at American University in Washington, D.C. While a student at American University, Butina got drunk on at least two separate occasions and bragged to her fellow students about her contacts in the Russian government; on both occasions, her classmates reported her to law enforcement, sources told CNN.

In February 2016, Butina and Erickson began a South Dakota business, Bridges LLC.

Erickson later said the company was established in case Butina needed any monetary assistance for her graduate studies, which Butina commenced in mid-2016 American University in Washington, D.C. In 2018, she completed a master's degree in international relations.

As part of her work as a foreign agent, Butina worked to infiltrate the National Rifle Association on behalf of Russia.

Torshin and Butina established a cooperative relationship between the NRA and Right to Bear Arms.

In 2017, Butina told The Washington Post that she never worked for the Russian government.

In July 2018, while residing in Washington, D.C., Butina was arrested by the FBI and charged with acting as an agent of the Russian Federation "without prior notification to the Attorney General."

In December 2018, she pleaded guilty to felony charges of conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent of the Russian state under 18 U.S.C. §951.

In April 2019, a federal judge sentenced her to 18 months in prison.

She served around five months at Tallahassee Federal Correctional Institution.

Her 9-month pretrial prison term was counted towards her sentence.

She was released and deported back to Russia in October 2019.

She publicly denied being a Russian spy.

In 2021, she was elected to the State Duma as a member of United Russia.