Maria Butina, a Russian national who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and acted as an unregistered foreign agent in the US, denied this week that her new seat in Russia's parliament is a gift. "It's not a reward," Butina told the New York Times in a new interview. "I wasn't a spy. I wasn't working for the government. I was just a civilian." "If I had known that I have to register to build peace between the two nations by my own initiative, I would have loved to," she added.