To some she was the flame-haired Russian face of their country’s gun lobby. To others she was a journalist. Some saw her as a mere student.

But to the US government, she was a suspected spy.

Now Maria Butina, 29, is facing federal conspiracy charges, appearing in court on Wednesday in Washington DC.

Butina’s lawyers acknowledge that she has been intensively questioned by the Senate intelligence committee, but insist that she is just a student.

Yet she has been on the FBI’s radar since at least 2015.

"It’s psychosis. A witch hunt," her father, Valery Butin, was quoted as saying Wednesday by the Altapress website in her hometown of Barnaul.