She faces a maximum of five years in prison, but she won't be sentenced immediately. Her cooperation could lead to a reduced sentence. The charges were filed by the Justice Department's national security unit and US prosecutors in Washington, rather than by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian influence in the election. As part of the plea agreement, Butina may provide information about Paul Erickson, her onetime boyfriend. Erickson matches the description of a man referred to as "US Person 1" in Butina's charging documents. Erickson connected her with influential Republicans and wrote in a message that he had been involved "in securing a VERY private line of communication between the Kremlin" and key officials of the NRA, prosecutors said. Butina infiltrated the top levels of the National Rifle Association and the Republican Party. Credit:AP Erickson has visited Butina in jail several times this year, according to her attorney, Robert Driscoll. Bill Hurd, Erickson's lawyer, said his client is "a good American" who "has never done anything to hurt our country and never would".

Her admission added to the drumbeat of developments in investigations related to the 2016 presidential election, with indications that prosecutors are receiving information from several people close to President Donald Trump. Loading This week, Trump's longtime fixer Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison and said he'd assist prosecutors, and the President's former national security adviser Michael Flynn acknowledged he'd sat for 19 interviews with prosecutors and provided thousands of pages of documents. American Media Inc, a tabloid publisher with ties to Trump, is cooperating too, after admitting to federal investigators in New York that its chief executive talked to people on Trump's nascent campaign about buying and burying damaging stories that could damage the candidate. Russia says its spy agencies had no knowledge of Butina or her activities.

"When I heard something was going on around her, for a start I asked the heads of our secret services, 'Who is she?' Nobody knows anything about her," President Vladimir Putin said in a televised appearance in Moscow on Tuesday, the day after Butina said in a filing she wanted to change her plea. Butina travelled to the US in 2015 and entered the US on a student visa in 2016 to study at American University in Washington. She reported to Alexander Torshin, the former deputy chairman of Russia's central bank, court documents show. Maria Butina has admitted to working as a Russian agent in the US. Torshin accompanied Butina to a variety of conservative political events. In 2015 and 2016, the pair attended at least one NRA conference and a National Prayer Breakfast, the filings say. At one conference, they met with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Butina also attended Walker's announcement that he was running for president. At a town-hall-style event in Las Vegas in 2015, Butina asked candidate Trump whether he would improve the US relationship with Russia. Trump said he would.