![]() Whelan, a former Marine, is currently serving 16 years on espionage charges that the United States has described as bogus. While the State Department has declared both Griner and Whelan to be wrongfully detained and has labeled freeing them a top priority, there is a downside to negotiating a deal to bring them home. As Blinken himself acknowledged, a high-profile prisoner exchange could incentivize the Russians to seize more Americans and could embolden other rogue nations to do the same. Then there’s the matter of Russia’s apparent lopsided asking price. Bout, the inspiration for the 2005 Nicolas Cage film, “Lord of War,” is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence in Illinois for conspiring to kill Americans and sell weapons to terrorists. He is a man who the DEA had to lure out of Russia to bring to justice and who the U.S. ![]() Viktor Bout, center, is led by armed Thai police commandoes as he arrives at the criminal court in Bangkok, Thailand, Tuesday, Oct. The Russian arms dealer who once inspired a Hollywood movie is back in the headlines with speculation around a return to Moscow in a prisoner exchange for U.S. WBNA star Brittney Griner and former U.S. (AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong, File) Who is Viktor Bout?Įxactly how bad is Viktor Bout? The answer varies depending on who you ask. Russian state media calls him a “businessman” and an “entrepreneur.” His former website says he’s a “born salesman with undying love for aviation.” A longtime DEA agent once described him as “one of the most dangerous men on the face of the earth.”īorn in the Soviet outpost of Tajikistan to Russian parents, Bout, 55, displayed an early gift for mastering languages. He reportedly is fluent in more than a half-dozen languages, including English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Uzbek.īout has acknowledged graduating from the prestigious Military Institute of Foreign Languages, then working in Africa in the late 1980s as a Soviet military translator. ![]() The military language school was known as a training ground for the Soviet foreign military intelligence directorate known as the GRU. When the Soviet Union teetered and collapsed in 1991, Bout, then in his mid-20s, astutely saw opportunity amid the chaos. Piles of weapons and ammunition lay discarded in dusty warehouses. Military planes sat abandoned on Soviet runways because there was no money for maintenance or fuel, and no one was flying them. Relying on his military and intelligence connections, Bout acquired several Antonov cargo planes known for their heavy airlift capacity and ability to land in treacherous terrain. ![]()
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