MI6 tackar rysk stats-tv – sände spionrekryteringstal

Maria Valeryevna Butina (Russian: Мари́я Вале́рьевна Бу́тина, sometimes transliterated as Mariya Butina; born November 10, 1988) is a Russian politician, political activist, journalist, and former entrepreneur who was convicted in 2018 of acting as an unregistered foreign agent of Russia within the United States.Butina worked as an assistant for Aleksandr Torshin; a former member of the Federation Council, member of Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, and deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia. In this role, she worked to infiltrate conservative groups in the US, including the National Rifle Association, as part of an effort to promote Russian interests in the 2016 United States presidential election. The Senate Intelligence Committee later concluded that she attempted to persuade the Trump campaign to establish a secret communications back channel with Russia.In July 2018, while residing in Washington, D.C., Butina was arrested by the FBI and charged with acting as an agent of the Russian Federation "without prior notification to the Attorney General." In December 2018, she pleaded guilty to felony charges of conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent of the Russian state under 18 U.S.C. §951. In April 2019, a federal judge sentenced her to 18 months in prison. She served around five months at Tallahassee Federal Correctional Institution. Her 9-month pretrial prison term was counted towards her sentence. She was released and deported back to Russia in October 2019. She publicly denied being a Russian spy. In 2021, she was elected to the State Duma as a member of United Russia.

Secret Intelligence Service, SIS (även benämnt som MI6, förkortning för Military Intelligence Section 6), är Storbritanniens underrättelsetjänst för inhämtning av information i utlandet genom så kallad HUMINT. Namnet MI6 till trots, som av bekvämlighetsskäl infördes under andra världskriget, är det inte en militär organisation och chefen för SIS lyder under Storbritanniens utrikesminister. SIS sköter all Storbritanniens spionaktiviteter utomlands i motsats till MI5 som sköter kontraspionaget och GCHQ som bedriver signalspaning. Organisationen grundades 1909 och har gått under många namn. Dess existens medgavs inte av brittiska myndigheter förrän 1994 och från samma år sätts ramarna för verksamheten i lagen Intelligence Services Act 1994., i vilken det framgår att verksamheten endast ska utövas med hänsyn till nationell säkerhet (med vilket främst avses regeringens försvars- och utrikespolitik) samt för Storbritanniens "ekonomiska välmående".Organisationens motto är "Semper Occultus", latin för "alltid hemligt".