Russian arms dealer dubbed the ‘Merchant of Death’ – who the U.S. traded in exchange for WNBA star Brittney Griner – is running for office in Russia as a member of a far right political party
- Viktor Bout, 56, has been nominated to run for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) in the March 2024 Russian election, according to state news
- He has only been out of prison for six months, after serving 10 years of his 25-year sentence behind bars in Marion, Illinois, on arms dealing charges
- Bout was traded with Olympic gold medalist Griner in December 2022
A Russian arms dealer who the US traded in a prisoner swap for WNBA star Brittney Griner is running for office as a member of an ultra-nationalist party.
Viktor Bout, dubbed the ‘Merchant of Death’ by Western security services, has been nominated to run for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) in the Russian election next March, according to state news agency Rossiya Segodnya (RIA).
The 56-year-old has only been out of prison for six months, after serving 10 years of his 25-year sentence behind bars in Marion, Illinois, on arms dealing charges.
Bout, who is ostensibly from Tajikistan but holds multiple passports, was released in exchange for Olympic gold medalist Griner in December 2022.
His arrest came after he was snared by the DEA in a devilishly complicated sting operation in 2008 in which he thought he was selling arms to the FARC – Columbian rebels – to shoot down US passenger jets.
Viktor Bout, dubbed the ‘Merchant of Death’ by Western security services, has been nominated to run for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) in the Russian election in March 2024
Bout, who is ostensibly from Tajikistan but holds multiple passports, was released in exchange for Houston-born Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner, 32, in December 2022
Pictured: Merchant of Death Victor Bout (right) is seen smiling during the prisoner swap in the UAE. Griner is shown in red, left, as she is handed over to US officials
The US Department of Justice described him as one world’s most prolific arms dealers, accusing him of selling weapons to terrorists across the globe, including many of America’s enemies.
Bout has always denied the charges, and publicly joined the LDPR following his return to Russia.
Meanwhile, Griner was sentenced in 2022 to nine years in a penal colony for possessing vape cartridges containing cannabis oil – a banned substance in Russia – after a judicial process labeled a sham by Washington.
Houston-born Griner, 32, has since resumed her sports career.
Bout’s bid to join the Russian regional legislature as a representative for the central region of Ulyanovsk was disclosed by a party official on Sunday, according to RIA.
Despite its name, the LDPR holds far-right, ultra-nationalist views and strongly supports President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
It currently holds 23 of the 450 seats in the Russian legislature, and falls to the right of Putin’s dominant United Russia Party on the political spectrum.
The LDPR has previously provided a home to Andrei Lugovoi, who is wanted in Britain for the 2006 murder of ex-KGB officer and Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko.
Lugovoi has served as an LDPR member of Russia’s national parliament since 2007.
During his career trading weapons, Bout became notorious for his willingness to arm almost anyone, from Al-Qaeda to militias in Sierra Leone, to Charles Taylor’s brutal Liberian regime, to the Taliban.
His exploits helped inspire the 2005 Hollywood film Lord of War starring Nicholas Cage as Yuri Orlov, which was loosely based on Bout’s life.
Among Bout’s most infamous acts was stealing $32 billion worth of weaponry from Ukraine between 1992 and 1998.
In August, DailyMail.com revealed that Bout had become part of the negotiations to bring Griner home.
Pictured: ‘Merchant of Death’ Viktor Bout is seen onboard a plane heading back to Russia
Bout’s bid to join the Russian regional legislature as a representative for the central region of Ulyanovsk was disclosed by a party official on Sunday
The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed the swap, saying in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that the exchange took place in Abu-Dhabi.
Purportedly a native of the city of Dushanbe in Soviet Tajikistan, Bout is reported to be fluent in several languages and to have served in the Soviet army as a military translator, including in Angola, a country that would be central to his later career.
He has said he attended a Moscow language institute that serves as a training ground for military intelligence officers.
Bout also became renowned for his vegetarianism and environmentalism, with his colleague Michael Cichakli telling the New York Times: ‘He’s a vegetarian. He’s an ecologist. He believes in saving the rain forest.’
It was in Africa where Bout honed in on his environmentalism, photographing wildlife and learning about local tribes.
He said in 2003: ‘What I really want to do now is to take one of my helicopters to the Russian Arctic north and make wildlife films for National Geographic and the Discovery channel.’
After the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, he was able to capitalize on a glut of cheap, Soviet-made weaponry that could be sold to customers in Africa, Asia and South America.
Operating out of the United Arab Emirates, he used a fleet of Soviet-era Antonov planes, that he found discarded in disused air force bases, to supply guns to insurgencies, warlords and rogue states around the world.
The CIA and MI6 began tracking Bout in a serious way in the early 1990s as he began transporting all manner of things, including mining equipment and chickens, throughout Africa.
It was at this time that Bout became friends with despotic leaders across the continent.
In 2000, security agencies discovered that Bout was at the helm of possibly the biggest arms trafficking operation in the world.
Bout pictured during his time in the Russian military aged 20, he was known to be fluent in a number of languages
Bout pictured during his 1992 marriage to his wife Alla, the couple remain married to this day
Bout began a life on the run in 2002 when law enforcement in Belgium issued an arrest warrant for him, after he allegedly used fake passports to travel under a succession of aliases.
His moniker, Merchant of Death, was coined by British Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain, who said in 2003: ‘Bout is the leading merchant of death who is the principal conduit for planes and supply routes that take arms… from East Europe, principally Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine to Liberia and Angola.’
Hain added: ‘The UN has exposed Bout as the center of a spider’s web of shady arms dealers, diamond brokers and other operatives, sustaining the wars.’
In 1992, he married his wife Alla, who said during his trial that her husband’s only connection to Colombia was through ‘tango lessons.’
In a 2009 interview with Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, Bout denied ever working with Al-Qaeda but said that he did fly arms into Afghanistan to aid the forces who were battling the Taliban.
Bout said in the same appearance that he helped UN peacekeepers in Rwanda in the 1990s and brought supplies into the genocide-ridden country.
However, in his 2003 New York Times interview, Bout spoke openly about working against the Taliban for the struggling Rabbani government.
He said: ‘I took sides because I knew what the Taliban was. Rabbani and Massoud were the only hope. I had a major pact with the Rabbani government. We sustained them. My aircraft was the last one out of Bagram air base before the Taliban came.’
At the time, Bout said he was flying four shipments a day of weapons and supplies into Jalalabad.
Following his arrest, then attorney general Eric Holder referred to him as ‘one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers.’ Though the arrest angered the Kremlin. He was extradited to the US in 2010.
At trial, Bout maintained his innocence. A jury heard that when a terrorist organization told him that his weapons would be used to kill American pilots, he replied: ‘We had the same enemy.’
In 2012, he was given a 25-year prison sentence by a U.S. court on multiple charges related to his arms dealing career. He was 45 at the time.
Bout pictured at home during the 2014 Netflix documentary The Notorious Mr. Bout
Between 2003 and 2008, Bout is thought to have rarely left Moscow. It’s believed that the US string operation teased him away from his homeland
Following his arrest, then attorney general Eric Holder referred to him as ‘one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers’
Russia has always proclaimed his innocence, describing his case as a glaring injustice and attempting to secure his release.
The same year, Bout was named as an associate of Liberian President Charles Taylor and accused of aiding in war crimes committed during the civil war in Sierra Leone.
According to the 2017 book Operation Relentless by Damien Lewis, Bout’s mantra was never fly empty.
If his planes landed on remote airstrips stuffed with weapons, he wanted them stuffed with something else when they left.
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