MOSCOW, October 24. /TASS/. US officials will inform jailed Russian national Maria Butina of the procedure of her deportation after her release on October 25, Butina’s spokesman in Moscow Alexander Ionov told TASS on Thursday. The Russian national will then inform her attorney of the procedure, he added.

"She is released at 08:00 (13:00 Moscow time) on October 25. Then she <…> must be deported to Russia. We do not know yet how long it would take - this is an affair of the US immigration service. As soon as she arrives at the airport, in the terminal zone, she is legally entitled to one call: she will call her attorney (Robert Driscoll). She will inform the attorney of her location, flight number and time of arrival. The attorney will inform us immediately," Ionov said.

Butina’s case

Maria Butina was arrested in Washington DC on July 15, 2018, right before the Helsinki meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump. The US Department of Justice said that she was suspected of acting "as an agent of Russia inside the United States by developing relationships with US persons and infiltrating organizations having influence in American politics, for the purpose of advancing the interests of the Russian Federation."

Butina had arrived in the United States for a course of studies. In the spring of 2018, she obtained a master’s degree at American University, where she studied international relations.

On December 13, 2019, Butina pled guilty to a conspiracy to violate the US law governing foreign agents operating in the country and signed a plea agreement. On April 26, a court in Washington sustained the prosecution’s request for sentencing Butina to 18 months behind bars. She will be deported to Russia immediately after serving her sentence.

Earlier, the US Federal Bureau of Prisons informed TASS that Butina’s prison sentence had been reduced, and she will be released on October 25, 2019.