Narratives

Four narratives regarding Butina’s deportation were particularly prominent among pro-Kremlin outlets during the last week of October.

Narrative: Butina was trying to normalize relations between Russia and the United States.

Russian media and politicians asserted that Butina had simply sought to facilitate dialogue between conservative Russian and American politicians in order to mend ties between the two countries. They justified Butina’s efforts to establish close relations with American politicians by claiming that official channels of communication between Russia and the United States had become ineffective due to strained diplomatic relations between the two countries.

This narrative is false, as Butina was acting under the direction of a Kremlin-affiliated Russian official, Torshin, who the U.S. Department of the Treasury had previously sanctioned for interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. More specifically, U.S. prosecutors suspected Torshin of transferring money to U.S. political nonprofit advocacy organization the National Rifle Association (NRA) in support of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s election campaign. Consequently, Butina’s activities were considered to be a part of Russia’s larger campaign of interfering in American elections.

Narrative: U.S. law enforcement only arrested Butina because she was a Russian national; every Russian person in the United States should be careful.

Multiple actors, including Butina herself, presented her detention as an act directed against the Russian people. After coming back to Russia, Butina gave a long interview to Kremlin outlet RT, claiming that “racism” is thriving in the United States and that she was sentenced for simply being Russian. She urged all Russians to be very careful in the United States. Anatoly Antonov, Russian Ambassador to the United States, echoed the message. Pro-Kremlin outlets, including Zhurnalistkaya Pravda and Izvestia, picked the narrative up and asserted that any contact between Russians and Americans is seen as an “alien invasion.” Therefore, any Russian with extensive contacts with U.S. political figures and activists immediately comes under scrutiny of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence. One Kremlin propagandist, Vladimir Sovolyev, claimed that Democrats needed to arrest someone Russian in order to prove Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections.

The Russian Embassy in the United States also pushed this narrative through its twitter account. On October 26, the U.S. Embassy in Russia tweeted: “On October 25, 2019, Russian citizen Maria Butina was released from prison. She was deported after serving 18-month sentence in American prison for conspiracy to act as an agent of foreign government.” The Russian Embassy in the United States then retweeted it, adding the following comment: “Stop hunting for Russians around the world. Our compatriots convicted on trumped-up charges still remain in American prisons. A civilized approach is the use of existing mechanisms of 🇷🇺🇺🇸 legal cooperation.”

The Russian Embassy in the United States retweeted (above) the tweet from the U.S. Embassy in Russia (below). (Source: @RussiaInUSA/archive)

Narrative: Butina pleaded guilty only because she was under moral and physical pressure in prison.

The Russian government has maintained that Butina is innocent, even in the face of her guilty plea. After she was released, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov asserted that the prison administration deliberately created intolerable conditions for Butina in an effort to force a false confession. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed that the whole American system, from media to politicians, had worked in sync to break Butina down. In her interview with RT, Butina claimed that the prison administration treated her in a manner similar to how detained terrorists were treated after 9/11. A headline on Vesti TV claimed that “Butina had to fight for food in the American prison.”

Pro-Kremlin TV channels Rossiya 1 and Perviy Kanal displayed lists of “tough conditions” Butina faced in prison. These lists included solitary confinement and extremely low temperatures in the cell, regular checks on her cell, the withholding of medical treatment, and being prohibited from receiving mail in Russian.