Russian agent Maria Butina has been reduced to begging for money online, purportedly to cover legal fees, in videos someone is recording for her… in jail. She’s probably at a facility in Oklahoma. They weren’t recorded or posted directly by her.
Oh, “Crimea River.”
In the Instagram video, Butina is speaking into a landline phone receiver, in a prison dormitory with bunk beds. Her lawyer is filing an appeal, the convicted Russian agent says, and she asks for contributions to help pay the guy.
Didn’t know convicted Russian agents could make money online while incarcerated like that. Learn something new every day.
Here’s the video, from the Instagram feed associated with Butina.
More from CBS News:
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Sunday on state TV that “we aren’t financing a lawyer, but we are doing everything so that she will be afforded all rights as a Russian citizen.”
Russian state news agency Tass reported that Butina recorded the video at a jail in Grady County, Oklahoma. Butina had been serving her sentence at a jail in Alexandria, Virginia, outside Washington.
A spokeswoman for the Alexandria Detention Center told CBS News that Butina was transferred from the facility on May 10.