Russian ‘agent’ Butina appeals prison sentence

Maria Butina, the only Russian arrested and convicted in the three-year investigation of Moscow’s interference in US politics, filed an appeal Wednesday against her 18-month prison sentence.

The 30-year-old Russian gun activist, who built a network of high-powered Republican contacts in what she called a quest to establish better relations between the two countries, was stunned in April when a Washington court handed down the stiff sentence instead of expelling her from the country as expected.

Butina pleaded guilty in December to acting as an agent of a foreign government without registering -- a so-called “espionage-lite” charge the US has used against alleged Russian spies.

Prosecutors say that although she was not an employee of any of Moscow’s spy services, she knowingly took part in an operation to “spot and assess” potential US espionage targets. She said she was only in the United States to attend graduate school.