US authorities arrested a Russian national and accused her of acting as a Russian agent without registering, a day before President Donald Trump sided with President Vladimir Putin over Russian election interference.
The Justice Department accused the woman, Mariia Butina, of trying to “create a back-channel line of communication” between US and Russian officials and attempting to infiltrate the National Rifle Association on behalf of the Russian government.
Ms Butina served as a special assistant to the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank, Alexander Torshin, a former Russian senator belonging to Vladimir Putin’s political party with alleged ties to the Russian mob world.
Mr Torshin isn’t named in the complaint but is identifiable by title. Mr Torshin, who is now under sanctions by the US government, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The arrest is the latest demonstration of a split personality within the Trump administration. Prosecutors said Butina herself described the goal of the assignment as “a serious mission – restoration of relations between countries.” Hours before she appeared in court, Mr Trump and Mr Putin took the stage at a meeting in Helsinki and said they sought to restore ties between the nations.
On Friday, the US charged 12 Russian military intelligence officers with computer attacks meant to undermine the Democratic Party during the 2016 election. That same day, Trump called the probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as a “witch hunt.” The investigation is now being handled by the Justice Department’s National Security Division, which brought the charges against Ms Butina.
Ms Butina, who entered the US on a student visa, is in custody and is scheduled to appear in court again on July 18.
Her organisation, Right to Bear Arms, advocated for American-style Second Amendment rights among Russian citizens. Russian laws surrounding firearms are considerably more strict than that of the US
“She’s very, very well connected with elected officials in the Soviet Union,” Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, said of Ms Butina in a 2017 interview with Time. A 2015 gun rights event she organised allegedly drew the attention of several National Rifle Association officials, including Pete Brownell, who until recently was the head of the group’s board. He was replaced by Oliver North.
“I am deeply grateful for the friendship of the American NRA,” Ms Butina told Time in 2017. “My work has been focused exclusively on the expansion of gun rights – very publicly.”
Mr Torshin has repeatedly sought to bolster ties to the Trump family using connections he made at the NRA. The FBI is reportedly investigating whether the NRA took money from Russian interests that was then used to boost Mr Trump’s campaign.
Mr Torshin himself leveraged his relationships to reach out to the Trumps, seeking at one point to set up a dinner between Mr Trump and Mr Putin. Around then, Donald Trump Jr and Mr Torshin met briefly at an NRA-related event in Kentucky.
The major Hashd factions linked to Iran:
Badr Organisation: Seen as the most militarily capable faction in the Hashd. Iraqi Shiite exiles opposed to Saddam Hussein set up the group in Tehran in the early 1980s as the Badr Corps under the supervision of the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The militia exalts Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei but intermittently cooperated with the US military.
Saraya Al Salam (Peace Brigade): Comprised of former members of the officially defunct Mahdi Army, a militia that was commanded by Iraqi cleric Moqtada Al Sadr and fought US and Iraqi government and other forces between 2004 and 2008. As part of a political overhaul aimed as casting Mr Al Sadr as a more nationalist and less sectarian figure, the cleric formed Saraya Al Salam in 2014. The group’s relations with Iran has been volatile.
Kataeb Hezbollah: The group, which is fighting on behalf of the Bashar Al Assad government in Syria, traces its origins to attacks on US forces in Iraq in 2004 and adopts a tough stance against Washington, calling the United States “the enemy of humanity”.
Asaeb Ahl Al Haq: An offshoot of the Mahdi Army active in Syria. Asaeb Ahl Al Haq’s leader Qais al Khazali was a student of Mr Al Moqtada’s late father Mohammed Sadeq Al Sadr, a prominent Shiite cleric who was killed during Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Harakat Hezbollah Al Nujaba: Formed in 2013 to fight alongside Mr Al Assad’s loyalists in Syria before joining the Hashd. The group is seen as among the most ideological and sectarian-driven Hashd militias in Syria and is the major recruiter of foreign fighters to Syria.
Saraya Al Khorasani: The ICRG formed Saraya Al Khorasani in the mid-1990s and the group is seen as the most ideologically attached to Iran among Tehran’s satellites in Iraq.
(Source: The Wilson Centre, the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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The five pillars of Islam
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Quarter-finals
Saturday (all times UAE)
England v Australia, 11.15am
New Zealand v Ireland, 2.15pm
Sunday
Wales v France, 11.15am
Japan v South Africa, 2.15pm
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The five pillars of Islam
Farage on Muslim Brotherhood
Nigel Farage told Reform's annual conference that the party will proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood if he becomes Prime Minister.
"We will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country," he said. "Quite why we've been so gutless about this – both Labour and Conservative – I don't know.
“All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same.”
It is 10 years since a ground-breaking report into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins.
Among the former diplomat's findings was an assessment that “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” has “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, who commissioned the report, said membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood was a "possible indicator of extremism" but it would not be banned.
The Settlers
Director: Louis Theroux
Starring: Daniella Weiss, Ari Abramowitz
Rating: 5/5
UAE SQUAD
Khalid Essa, Ali Khaseif, Fahad Al Dhanhani, Adel Al Hosani, Bandar Al Ahbabi, Mohammad Barghash, Salem Rashid, Khalifa Al Hammadi, Shaheen Abdulrahman, Hassan Al Mahrami, Walid Abbas, Mahmoud Khamis, Yousef Jaber, Majed Sorour, Majed Hassan, Ali Salmeen, Abdullah Ramadan, Abdullah Al Naqbi, Khalil Al Hammadi, Fabio De Lima, Khalfan Mubarak, Tahnoon Al Zaabi, Ali Saleh, Caio Canedo, Ali Mabkhout, Sebastian Tagliabue, Zayed Al Ameri
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More on Quran memorisation:
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Evacuations to France hit by controversy
- Over 500 Gazans have been evacuated to France since November 2023
- Evacuations were paused after a student already in France posted anti-Semitic content and was subsequently expelled to Qatar
- The Foreign Ministry launched a review to determine how authorities failed to detect the posts before her entry
- Artists and researchers fall under a programme called Pause that began in 2017
- It has benefited more than 700 people from 44 countries, including Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Sudan
- Since the start of the Gaza war, it has also included 45 Gazan beneficiaries
- Unlike students, they are allowed to bring their families to France
