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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNRA leaders forged ties with Maria Butina while she was helping target Ukraine
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Mother Jones
@MotherJones
NRA leaders forged close ties with Russian agent Maria Butina while she was helping the Kremlin target the Ukraine region and working to arm pro-Russian separatists. The NRA claimed it didn't know about her actionsbut the evidence was publicly available.
motherjones.com
NRA leaders forged ties with Maria Butina while she was helping target Ukraine
The gun group claimed it didn't know about the Russian agent's actions, but the evidence was public.
6:30 PM · Mar 10, 2022
Mother Jones
@MotherJones
NRA leaders forged close ties with Russian agent Maria Butina while she was helping the Kremlin target the Ukraine region and working to arm pro-Russian separatists. The NRA claimed it didn't know about her actionsbut the evidence was publicly available.
motherjones.com
NRA leaders forged ties with Maria Butina while she was helping target Ukraine
The gun group claimed it didn't know about the Russian agent's actions, but the evidence was public.
6:30 PM · Mar 10, 2022
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/03/nra-maria-butina-ukraine-putin-war-crimea-republicans-trump-guns/
Four days into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the political arm of the National Rifle Association published an article praising a valiant Ukranian army and resistance from ordinary Ukrainians taking up arms to defend their country and communities. Since early February, the gun lobbying group had used the coming war as an opportunity to talk up gun rights. What is happening in Ukraine proves the wisdom of our founding fathers in drafting the Second Amendment, the NRA now reiterated as the bloodshed grew, a right essential to preserving human dignity, self-destiny and freedom.
Forgotten in the face of Vladimir Putins barbaric attack, it seems, were the cozy ties between top NRA officials and convicted Russian agent Maria Butina. The Kremlin operative didnt just commit conspiracy against the United Statesshe also worked on behalf of Putins military conquest in the Ukraine region during the same period she was forging alliances, both in the US and in Moscow, with NRA leaders.
Butina is best known for infiltrating the Republican Party and seeking to influence the 2016 election in favor of Donald Trump. She cultivated relationships among the conservative movement alongside her boss, Alexander Torshin, a high-level official from Putins party who donated to the NRA as a life member and later was sanctioned by the US government. After Butinas downfall, the NRA sought to distance itself and claimed it had no knowledge of Butinas foreign activities. But as I and my colleague Hannah Levintova reported in a 2019 investigation, while Butina was spending time with NRA leaders David Keene, Wayne LaPierre and others, information publicly available on social media and from other sources made clear that Butina was aggressively working against US national security interests:
Mother Jones has uncovered a trail of activity showing that during the same period when top NRA leaders welcomed Butina into the foldmeeting with her extensively in Moscow and the United StatesButina actively supported Russian President Vladimir Putins military takeover of Crimea. In the immediate aftermath of the invasion and annexation in March 2014, Butina denounced retaliatory sanctions by the Obama administration and traveled to Crimea to promote the arming of pro-Russian separatists. Her efforts there included pledging support to a leader of a militia group that violently seized a Crimean news outlet it deemed pro-American and swiftly repurposed for a Kremlin propaganda operation.
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NRA leaders forged ties with Maria Butina while she was helping target Ukraine (Original Post)
Nevilledog
Mar 2022
OP
niyad
(112,432 posts)1. Can someone post the video, "The Ballad of Maria Buttina" by Sandy and
Richard Riccardi? Thanks in advance.
teach1st
(5,928 posts)3. Is this the one?
niyad
(112,432 posts)7. Yes. Thank you.
captain queeg
(10,035 posts)2. I am so shocked.
underpants
(182,271 posts)4. I doubt we'll ever know how much money funneled through the NRA
and to whom.
OAITW r.2.0
(23,813 posts)5. Hey American Patriots....demonstrate in the Square.
Wear full armor and AR-15 reloads.
multigraincracker
(32,527 posts)6. Hey, they are now fighting to bring it's members the
same great gun laws of their Mother Land Russia.
Where are the, Its not treason people on this?