Startling new revelations about Maria Butina’s handler
Russian President Vladimir Putin must have known that stealing the 2016 United States presidential election for the candidate of his choice would be a high-risk, high-reward gamble. As a former KGB agent, Putin was well aware of the backlash that would come once American intelligence discovered his plan. We know that Putin’s grooming of Donald Trump for the role as his puppet, to be placed in the highest office in America, goes back several years. We also know, through multiple comments from Trump’s children, the family business had long relied on investments and loans from Russia. Trump World Tower, which broke ground in Manhattan in 1998, had “a third of units sold on floors 76 through 83 by 2004 involved people or limited liability companies connected to Russia and neighboring states.”
While Putin must have been ecstatic when his plan came to fruition and Trump illegitimately stole the White House, the Kremlin had to have a plan to further ensure its hold on power remained once Trump’s time in office came to an end. Putin is too intelligent to put all of his hope in the hands of a 71-year old narcissist who is willing to do anything that benefits him for even a few moments.
Last month, we learned that Russian spy Maria Butina was indicted and arrested by the FBI. Over the following days it was discovered that Butina’s handler was Russian politician Alexander Torshin, the current deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia. With Torshin’s close relationship to Putin, along with Butina’s infiltration of the NRA, it is now clear how Putin intended to recruit more Americans to fulfill his goal of controlling power in America.
With Trump’s days in power numbered due to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump-Russia treason, as well as the NRA’s diminishing power due to alleged money problems, Putin likely knew he had to reach out to a growing section of the American population. It turns out that was exactly the strategy Putin and Torshin undertook. Torshin would regularly host young Americans visiting Moscow as part of a cultural exchange program, going back to at least 2010. According to Politico, he would invite students to visit Russia’s parliament, “where he gushed about his love of guns, bourbon and America.” If this seems odd, you are not alone, as the FBI became interested in this new Russian plan to create relationships with young American citizens.
“He was friendly, traveled to the U.S. often and enjoyed sharing his experiences of visiting small-town America,” one of the American participants who went on two of these trips to Russia described Torshin. There is even a photo posted to the official Facebook page for the Center for American-Russian Engagement of Emerging Leaders (CAREEL), showing Michael Yaroshefsky, the Student Body President of Princeton University in 2012, at a meeting with Torshin and other students.
Torshin’s interactions with students would come to an end in 2013, “after FBI counterintelligence agents urgently located dozens of trip participants and told them the program was an elaborate cover for a Washington-based Russian spy recruiting effort.” It was determined that Russia had created dossiers on some of the students as part of their plan to convert them to become spies. It is clear that Putin’s ultimate goal included more than just stealing the 2016 election for Trump. Long after Trump begins serving his prison sentence for treason, Americans will still need to be diligent in recognizing threats created by Putin’s desire to infiltrate America.
I’m a ceramic engineer living in Central New York, avid sports fan but find myself more interested in politics lately.