Maria Butina, a 29-year-old Russian who once posed with guns in Russian GQ magazine, pleaded not guilty this week to charges she acted as a covert Russian agent working with a Kremlin-connected banker to spread influence in the US. Prosecutors allege she conspired with a Russian official, who CNN has learned is Alexander Torshin, in a plan spanning several years that “was calculated, patient, and directed by the Russian Official.”
