On November 18, High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation Tatiana Moskalkova met with Maria Butinа.

During the meeting, Maria Butina told the High Commissioner about the early days in an American prison and thanked Tatiana Moskalkova for her support and assistance with her return home.

"Thanks to the press conference you held, my situation had been brought to a new level. That was not just a problem of Maria Butina, a student detained somewhere abroad, but it was a problem of the whole state, when the whole country, in your person, came to my defense," Maria Butina said.

During the meeting, Tatiana Moskalkova spoke about the concept of protecting the rights of compatriots abroad and its positive results. In addition, the federal ombudsperson announced the expansion of the working group to protect the rights of Russian citizens in Ukraine.

"A working group to protect the rights of Russian citizens in Ukraine has been created in the High Commissioner’s Office. We decided to expand it, because there are a lot of our citizens in other states — they are Alexander Vinnik in Greece, Konstantin Yaroshenko in the USA, they are our citizens in other states and we care about them, and today we have developed an interesting, new mechanism for interaction with UN bodies, the Council of Europe, we worked on your case, on the case of Kirill Vyshinsky, and on the fate of other citizens in prison on far-fetched grounds," said the High Commissioner.

At the end of the meeting, Tatiana Moskalkova invited Maria Butina to take an active part in the working group to protect compatriots abroad.

"I am very glad to see you back. Get to work. I invite you to work in our group for the protection of compatriots abroad, and I am sure that together we can bring a lot of benefit to people who find themselves in a difficult life situation abroad," the High Commissioner noted.