{"id":213106,"date":"2021-03-27T21:19:02","date_gmt":"2021-03-27T18:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/russian-spy-maria-butina-says-smart-men-were-her-weakness\/"},"modified":"2021-03-27T21:19:02","modified_gmt":"2021-03-27T18:19:02","slug":"russian-spy-maria-butina-says-smart-men-were-her-weakness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/russian-spy-maria-butina-says-smart-men-were-her-weakness\/","title":{"rendered":"#Russian ‘spy’ Maria Butina says smart men were her ‘weakness’"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Russian ‘spy’ Maria Butina says smart men were her ‘weakness’<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

From Russia with love \u2014 and then some. <\/p>\n

Admitted Russian agent Maria Butina is claiming she wasn\u2019t a spy at all \u2014 just a gun-loving student with a \u201cweakness\u201d for smart and powerful men.<\/p>\n

Butina, who served 15 months behind bars for\u00a0breaching conservative circles\u00a0to influence US Republican politics, was interviewed from a Virginia jail for a six-part Wondery series<\/a>, \u201cSpy Affair,\u201d set to be released Tuesday.<\/p>\n

In the first two episodes, previewed by The Post, Butina, 32, casts herself as a firearm loving peacemaker \u2014 trying to learn from the National Rifle Association and conservatives to promote gun rights in the Motherland, and build a \u201crelationship between two countries [she] loved.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I romanticized the NRA. They have the biggest lobbying group, and I wanted to learn how they do it,\u201d Butina tells narrator Celia Aniskovich.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Maria
Maria Butina posing with firearms \u2013 FBI counter-intelligence agents arrested her on charges she acted as a Kremlin agent.<\/figcaption>
Oleg Volk\/Polaris<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

That Butina just so happ<\/a>ened to have affairs with powerful, twice-her-age men who facilitated her ruse was simply the luck of the draw, she insisted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have one weakness as a woman \u2014 I really like smart men. That\u2019s my biggest weakness, and that I guess gets me in trouble all the time,\u201d she says of her romance with former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne.<\/p>\n

Butina came on the scene as a student at American University, when the US and Russia were locked in a fierce sanctions battle ahead of the 2016 election.<\/p>\n

And so her relationship \u2014 and allegiance \u2014 to Alexander Torshin, a prominent Russian politician and banker, raised red flags within the FBI, which suggested her motives went far beyond glasnost. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not trained as a spy, but she\u2019s being used by elements of the Russian government in a way that is advancing Russian interests and that is what squarely put her on the radar,\u201d former FBI agent Peter Strozk says in the series.<\/p>\n

Butina, however, chalks her relationship with Torshin up to her desire to cozy up to the rich and powerful \u2014 the same reasons she gives for her keen interest in then-candidate Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Maria
Maria Butina<\/figcaption>
Alexandria Detention Center\/AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cFor me he is not a government official, he has become my gun-loving friend,\u201d she says of Torshin.<\/p>\n

Butina\u2019s main pipeline to the GOP was through her then-boyfriend Paul Erickson, a Republican operative and an unlikely match for the svelte and charming Russian \u2014 with whom he was rarely seen being affectionate towards, pals said. <\/p>\n

\u201c[It was] like they were on the same page about something \u2014 and we didn\u2019t know what it was,\u201d says Elena Nicolaou, the daughter of one of Erickson\u2019s pals who met Butina on a trip<\/a> to Disney World in 2015.<\/p>\n

The trip was a dream come true, Butina gushes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came back to my childhood \u2014 this is how I dreamed: \u2018Someday, I\u2019m going to go to the stars, way beyond our galaxy,\u2019\u201d she recalls about her wave of emotions riding Disney\u2019s Space Mountain rollercoaster.<\/p>\n

\"Maria
Maria Butina walks with Alexander Torshin on Sept. 7, 2012.<\/figcaption>
Pavel Ptitsin\/AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Her relationship with Byrne blossomed soon after the Florida trip, with rendezvous at the Bowery Hotel and a cabin outside of Park City, Utah.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy attitude to her was, \u2018look I know these Republican guys are duds. When you really want to come and get, you know, a world-class shagging and have a great weekend, give me a call,\u2019\u201d he recalls telling Butina.<\/p>\n

Byrne insists he kept up the relationship for Uncle Sam \u2014 to get to the bottom of Butina\u2019s real motives in the US.<\/p>\n

Eventually, he claims he was instructed to spy on her.<\/p>\n

\"Maria
Maria Butina posing with Paul Erickson. Erickson, the conservative political operative who once worked on Pat Buchanan\u2019s 1992 presidential campaign on July 17, 2015.<\/figcaption>
Oleg Volk\/Polaris<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201c\u2019We do not ask citizens to sleep with people to get information, but you are being asked to rekindle your romantic relationship with Maria and get to the bottom of what she is doing here,\u2019\u201d he says he was told by the US government, a claim that has been denied by FBI agents.<\/p>\n

Butina was arrested in July 2018 and spent 15 months behind bars before she was deported home in October 2019. Now, she works for Russia\u2019s state-owned television network as host of an online show that mocks opposition to the Kremlin.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

For forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

If you want to read more News<\/a> articles, you can visit our News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Russian ‘spy’ Maria Butina says smart men were her ‘weakness’” From Russia with love \u2014 and then some. Admitted Russian agent Maria Butina is claiming she wasn\u2019t a spy at all \u2014 just a gun-loving student with a \u201cweakness\u201d for smart and powerful men. Butina, who served 15 months behind bars for\u00a0breaching conservative circles\u00a0to influence…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":213107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/03\/maria-butina-0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[70855,99687,99863,4975,72167],"class_list":["post-213106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-2016-presidential-election","tag-3-27-21","tag-maria-butina","tag-russia","tag-spies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}