Alleged Russian agent's infiltration of GOP circles anything but subtle

As far as spy craft goes, Maria Butina's skills didn't seem particularly impressive.

The alleged covert Russian agent liked to communicate via Twitter messages and WhatsApp. Her overly flirtatious approach left men wondering what she was truly after. She tended to brag about her ties to Russian intelligence when she was intoxicated, according to people familiar with the situation.

"She's like a Scud missile. There's no precision," said CIA veteran Robert Baer, a CNN intelligence and security analyst.

Butina has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent in the US. Her lawyer, Robert Driscoll, told CNN Wednesday that she wouldn't take a deal from prosecutors if it meant admitting she was a spy.

"If you're not an agent for a foreign government, you can't lie and say you are in order to get rid of this," Driscoll said.

But intelligence experts say Butina's far-from-subtle approach to infiltrating Republican political circles in the US appears to be just one tactic in Moscow's arsenal as Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed to influence American politics and disrupt democracy ahead of the 2016 election. Those efforts are continuing, Trump administration officials say, in the run-up to the midterm elections.

Putin has numerous intelligence services at his disposal. Some excel in hacking. Others churn out seasoned operatives to gather intelligence and quietly recruit Americans. But there are also more informal missions, ones that are often directed by Putin himself with the help of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the KGB's successor.

"It's much less structured," Alina Polyakova, a Russia expert and foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, said of Russia's influence operations. "There often is kind of a proxy lead actor, who is usually an oligarch close to the regime, that is given a project and he outsources portions of that project."

"I almost think of it as project management," Polyakova added.

It also helps shed light on why run-ins between a ragtag assortment of Russians and members of Donald Trump's orbit appeared so random.

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