Was pressured to plead guilty, says Maria Butina upon return to Russia

Russian gun-rights activist Maria Butina, who was released from prison in the US on Friday after having served more than 15 months for conspiring to act as a foreign agent, returned to Moscow on Saturday.

Speaking to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti upon her return, the 30-year old insisted that she was "pressured" to plead guilty of trying to infiltrate conservative political circles and promoting Russian interests before and after the 2016 presidential elections.

"I pleaded guilty to non-registration as a foreign agent. (I'm) a person who did not do anything illegal, did not take any money, there were no victims, there wasn't even a person to conspire with," CNN quoted Butina as saying.

"According to my documents, I did not register before hosting friendship dinners with an American citizen, non-registration is the only crime in my documents," she said.

Butina said she was put in a solitary confinement cell to break her as a person. "Was there pressure on me? Absolutely. Of course. Ten days before I signed all the indictments, I was again put in a solitary confinement cell," Butina added. "This is intentional, this is done to break you as a person," she said.

The Russian national was sentenced to 18-month imprisonment last year after she pleaded guilty of allegedly trying to infiltrate conservative political circles and promoting Russian interests before and after the 2016 presidential elections.

As a leader of the small Russian gun-rights group, Butina had used her ties to the National Rifle Association to build a network of powerful Republican contacts. She is by far the only Russian citizen arrested and convicted in the three-year investigation of Moscow's interference in 2016 US presidential elections.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously criticised the case against Butina, as well as her sentence, calling it "arbitrary."

Speaking with reporters in Moscow airport on her arrival, Butina said she was questioned by the FBI for a total of 52 hours. "They started by asking if I worked for the Russian government, and I straight up said no."

Butina said that the line of questioning mainly circulated around her relationship with Alexander Torshin, a former Russian central banker and main backer of Butina's now-defunct orgzation 'Right to Bear Arms.'

"They kept asking: well, why you and Torshin did this and that? They still could not believe that sometimes people just do good things because they believe in friendship between states because people have common moral principles and they, for example, are fighting for the right to self-defence," Butina added.

( With inputs from ANI )