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The Russian “Dealer of Death” in exchange for the US athlete convicted by Moscow. The rumor persists.
The life of Viktor Bout is Hollywood stuff. “I’ve supplied every army – except the Salvation Army.” It’s not Bout himself who says that, but actor Nicolas Cage, the main character in the “Lord of War” strip from 2005. Bout is said to have served as a template for the director.
The real Viktor Bout was born in 1967 in Soviet Tajikistan. Thanks to his studies at the Military Institute for Foreign Languages, he is learning Portuguese, French and Arabic, among other things. At the age of 20 he was sent to Mozambique for the Air Force.
Four years later, the Soviet Union collapsed and the 24-year-old saw his chance in the chaos. He founds a transport company in Moscow and initially imports consumer goods. But he soon realizes that there is far more to be earned with Kalashnikovs, land mines and tanks. Thanks to his connections, he gets access to the arsenals of the Soviet Army.
“Merchant of Death”
A US documentary film describes his business in the early 1990s as follows: Viktor Bout supplies rebel groups, warlords and dictators in countries that had previously been supplied with weapons by the Soviet Union. At 30, Bout is a multi-millionaire, has countless transport planes and 300 employees. He has the international nickname “Merchant of Death”.
In the mid-1990s, however, Bout entered into a customer relationship that would later break his neck. According to the US authorities, he supplies weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan and later also to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist organization.
The trap
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bout finally landed on the US radar. HE flees to Russia. In 2008 the US authorities were able to lure Bout to Thailand. They pose as Colombian FARC rebels who want to buy surface-to-air missiles to kill Americans.
Legend:
Viktor Bout on extradition from Thailand to the United States on November 16, 2010
key stone
Thai police arrested Bout at the meeting, and Washington obtained the Russian’s extradition after a two-and-a-half year struggle. In 2011 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison in the USA.
Washington and Moscow are silent
In the meantime, pressure is increasing on US President Joe Biden to free basketball player Brittney Griner, who was convicted in Moscow earlier this month. The 31-year-old two-time Olympic champion has been jailed for nine years for having hash oil in her hand luggage.
Legend:
Basketball player Brittney Griner August 4 in court in Khimki, outside Moscow. She was arrested at Moscow’s Sherementyevo Airport on February 17 when cartridges for e-cigarettes containing hash oil were discovered in her luggage. Cannabis is banned in Russia.
Keystone/AP/Evgenia Novozhenina
But is there even a question of such an exchange after so much effort has gone into Bout’s capture? US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken only spoke of a “substantial offer” to Russia to free Griner and ex-US Marine Paul Whelan. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that discussing such things through the media is harmful.
Too high a price?
Critics of such a prisoner exchange are already coming forward. Michael Braun, the top US official responsible for the covert operation at the time, described Bout on CBS as one of the most dangerous men on the planet.
Addressing President Biden, Braun wrote in Foreign Policy magazine: Bout’s extradition would not only be a slap in the face to law enforcement agencies, but also a serious threat to the national security of the United States and its allies. At the same time, this could encourage Moscow and other rogue states to take Americans hostage.