"When I was arrested for the first time and put into a big black van, it all felt like a movie - a bad, ridiculous Hollywood blockbuster," she said.

Butina denied being a spy and insisted she just was a foreign student making friends. There was zero proof to the contrary and the charges were "bogus," she said. On top of that, the gun activist explained, the prosecution did not even bother to properly translate her tweets."The translation was completely horrendous. The phrase 'tech bordering on fantasy' was translated into English as 'secret equipment.'"You cannot translate it that way!"

The FBI questioned Butina for 52 hours, but according to her, the whole interrogation was "absolutely pointless." From the start, she said that she had no ties with the Russian government and the agents "quickly ran out of questions."

The activist said the FBI kept asking the same things about her activities over and over again because "they just couldn't believe that people can do good things for no special reason, simply because they believe in friendship between the countries and strive for people's right for self-protection." The lengthy interrogation was just for show, to make it look like the investigators "were doing something serious," while they had nothing.

"The worst thing is the US Marshals Services where they humiliate you; forbid you from going to the toilet for 16 hours; deny you water or food," Butina said as she talked to RT and Sputnik news agency on a plane that was taking her from the US back to Moscow. After that a low-security prison in Tallahassee, Florida seemed like "paradise" for her as she was allowed to go for walks and got a lot better rations.

"I was just a stack of bones," she recalled, but daily jogging and other exercises helped a lot. "I had problems with my memory, but it returned to me. My eyesight also improved."

Butina recalled that just one day before she was to be released, a guard, who became unhappy with how the prisoners were executing their duties in the kitchen, warned them: "If you will do that again I will f**k each and every one of you."

When a guard is cursing at you in the most obscene words possible... It just shouldn't be like that. We're women after all.

At first, the relations with fellow inmates were "tense" after she was transferred from Alexandria to a correctional facility in Tallahassee because "everybody watched the news" where she was portrayed as a villain, the 30-year-old recalled.

But that changed quickly when people got to know her. The activist said that a newspaper article in her defense was also passed on inside the prison and after some time "even some guards were telling me: 'It seems that they lied to us on this one.'"

"We had good relations with the other inmates," Butina said, also adding that many in prison simply called her "Russia," instead of using her real name.

The activist worked in the kitchen in Tallahassee and also volunteered as a math teacher, training inmates for the GED exam. She said she was proud that all of her students passed.

The US justice system is "very generous" at handing out sentences as "people remain in prison for a long time over the smallest violations. They are just taking their lives away from the girls. No correction is happening, while behind bars."

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"What Washington does now - the capture and holding under its armed control of oil fields in Eastern Syria is, simply speaking, an international state banditism," he said, adding that Syrian oil reserves and other mineral resources belong solely to the Syrian Arab Republic, not to Daesh terrorists or to "American protectors from Daesh terrorists""Neither international law, nor the American legislation itself can justify the US troops' goal to guard Syrian hydrocarbon reserves from Syria itself and its people," the statement reads.
...
The oil was smuggled in tanker truck convoys, guarded both by US servicemen and the mercenaries of private military contractors (PMCs), the ministry spokesman said.

"Meanwhile, Washington imposed sanctions on shipping hydrocarbons to Syria, which spans not only US companies, but everyone else," the statement says.

Despite that, oil extraction is being conducted using equipment provided by "leading Amercian corporations", Konashenkov said.
...
According to the statement, oil extraction was conducted by a US-controlled company, created under the so-called "Autonomous Administration of East Syria".

The smuggling revenue went through intermediary companies to US intelligence agency and PMC bank accounts, he said.

"Considering one barrel of Syrian oil costs $38, the monthly revenue of this 'private enterprise' of US intelligence agencies is more than $30 million," the statement reads. "For such a constant flow of cash, free of state control and taxes, Pentagon and Langley management will be ready to guard Syrian oil wells from 'hidden Daesh cells' indefinitely."

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