Maria Butina, a Russian national accused of being a spy, has agreed to cooperate with federal, state and local authorities as part of a deal. She withdrew her not-guilty plea and is expected to plead guilty to conspiracy on Thursday.
The news on Butina agreeing to cooperate with the investigation came out just days after Special Counsel Robert Mueller had filed documents on Michael Cohen and Michael Flynn with new revelations as to what lengths Russia’s intelligence services went to meddle in American affairs. While Butina’s case is not being prosecuted by Mueller’s office, her looming conspiracy plea suggests there are now at least two Kremlin plots that so far have been established with a high degree of certainty: Russia meddled in the U.S. elections by hacking Democratic National Committee servers and running deceptive campaigns on social media, and Russia tried to penetrate the National Rifle Association, and through it, the wider Republican establishment.
Maria Butina was being run by her one-time boss, a former Russian Senator and Central Bank deputy Aleksandr Torshin, who will more than likely emerge as a central figure in Butina’s testimony under the plea deal. The rest of the meddling was carried out by the GRU, the notorious Russian foreign military intelligence service.
It’s worth noting that both the head of the GRU and Butina’s boss have departed from their posts. The GRU director died three weeks days ago after “a long and serious illness”—which no reporter had gotten wind of before. And Aleksandr Torshin? As of November 30, he was no longer at the Central Bank: he retired three days after turning 65. The very next day, news leaked that Butina was in negotiations with U.S. attorneys.
Aleksandr Torshin had a high-flying career not only in Russia, but overseas as well. His name first popped up internationally in 2013 as of a key figure—“The Godfather,” they called him—in a high profile money-laundering case in Spain. Spanish authorities decided to arrest the Russian Senator during a trip to Mallorca. Apparently tipped off, Torshin abruptly canceled his trip, and was neither arrested nor charged.
None of this prevented Torshin from traveling to the United States in 2015 and 2016, where he and his protégé Maria Butina met with representatives from the NRA, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and many other Republican operatives. U.S. authorities are now investigating whether Torshin funneled money to the NRA. Whether he did or not, Torshin does have valuable experience in moving money: he helped the Russian mafia to launder money abroad, the Spanish investigation has shown.
Torshin got hit by a batch of bad luck for the first time in April of this year, when he ended up on a U.S. sanctions list. Three months later, Maria Butina was arrested, and despite exertions by the Russian Foreign Ministry, placed in jail.
However, on the eve of his 65th birthday, Torshin was in good spirits. “A good age!” he tweeted. “I wish you all good health and good night! Life goes on!” Days later, the Russian Central Bank announced Torshin’s retirement, and an unidentified Central Bank official told BBC Russia that Torshin’s gun hobby had come as a very bad surprise to them, and further disavowed his activities.
After Butina was officially announced to cooperate with the authorities, both she and her boss were thrown under the bus by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin called Butina a “poor girl,” but said he knew nothing about her and would inquire with his special services. “She worked for someone at the Federation Council, for some deputy,” he said. Torshin of course was no mere deputy, and Putin knew him well. Torshin’s star had fallen. Life will go on for him (Putin’s favorites tend to find ways to do well while in government service) but not any longer in government—certainly not after Putin’s statement.
Indeed, Aleksandr Torshin may go down in history to become the first high-profile official in Russia to retire at the new mandated retirement age of 65, raised by five years a few months ago in a round of unpopular belt-tightening undertaken by Putin—an age just one year shy of the average age of death for men in Russia.
By contrast, Lt. Colonel Igor Korobov, the aforementioned head of the GRU, was 62 when he was found dead. Russian officials didn’t bother to name the “long, serious” illness that had felled the good Colonel. One source reported that Lt. Col. Korobov first felt unwell in September, after having been reprimanded by Russia’s President. Notably, the previous GRU director, General Igor Sergun also died while at the office. He was 58 years old when suffered a “sudden death” of a heart attack in his house in Moscow region on January 3, 2016. The death was no less mysterious than that of his successor.
Sergun was said to be responsible for the revival of the GRU’s fortunes—especially in its rivalry with Putin’s alma mater, the FSB—during his tenure as its leader. But the GRU truly gained international renown and publicity under Lt. Col. Korobov. Not only were the GRU’s attempts at meddling in the U.S. elections detected, the individuals responsible were identified, and the individuals were indicted. The two geniuses charged with poisoning Sergey and Yulia Skripal used a dangerous chemical weapon on the soil of a key NATO ally, accidentally murdered a homeless woman, and were also quickly identified by British authorities. Putin played dumb, and insisted the two suspects tell their side of the story. By the time the two men appeared on RT to supposedly defend themselves, however, their real identities had been exposed by online sleuths. The real names and addresses of 300 other GRU agents were similarly exposed earlier this year due to sloppy tradecraft. Beyond the comic spectacle of a supposedly highly-trained intelligence service stumbling so clumsily into the spotlight, the screwups had meaningful consequences. The U.S. State Department imposed new sanctions on Russia under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991, with more sanctions expected to follow.
If Sergun was the gray cardinal—a behind-the-scenes man at the GRU—Korobov’s star shined brightly. All too brightly, perhaps, and as a result, briefly.
As with most things in Russia these days, there’s no way to be sure what is happening behind the curtain. Nevertheless, it stands to reason that Putin is not terribly happy with how his intelligence services have been performing of late. If the events I’ve described above are related to his displeasure, look for much more juicy stuff coming out of U.S. law enforcement in the coming weeks. Whether there was outright collusion or not, clumsy Russian spies appear to have given prosecutors a whole lot to look into.