MOSCOW. July 17 (Interfax) - Russian citizen Maria Butina, who has been detained in the United States on suspicion of espionage, earlier communicated with the National Rifle Association of America (NRA), the chairman of the board of the All Russian organization The Right to Bear Arms, Igor Shmelyov, told Interfax.
"Maria was engaged in that. It was her field of work. I do not know the details," Shmelyov said.
Neither The Right to Bear Arms nor the NRA is involved in foreign policy-related activities, he said.
According to Shmelyov, Butina arrived in the U.S. in 2015.
"I think Maria went there [to the U.S.] in 2015 to study. She wrote on her page in social networks that she defended her graduation thesis," he said.
Butina is still a member of the board of The Right to Bear Arms, he said.