Russian officials to meet suspected spy jailed in US

Russian Embassy officials are to meet with a Siberian gun rights activist jailed in Washington on charges of spying on the United States.

The Embassy said in a Facebook post that consular officials will meet with Maria Butina tomorrow for the first time since her Sunday arrest, and will provide her "all necessary help".

Butina, 29, denies wrongdoing, and the Russian government has lashed out at the arrest as driven by US domestic politics and "anti-Russian hysteria".

Federal prosecutors accuse Butina of being a covert Russian agent, having contacts with the KGB successor agency FSB, and using sex and deception to forge influential US connections.

One of her former teachers told The Associated Press that just before her arrest she was considering a job in Silicon Valley.