Viktor Bout, an infamous arms trafficker released by the United States in December 2022 as part of a Russia-U.S. prisoner swap involving WNBA star Brittney Griner, is reportedly back in business.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Bout recently added a new client to his portfolio: the Houthis, a Yemeni militia allied with Iran which launched numerous attacks against Israel and U.S. forces in the Middle East over the last few months. The find marks yet another twist in a tumultuous life that inspired 2005 blockbuster “Lord of War”, with Hollywood star Nicolas Cage portraying Bout.
At 57, the Tajik-born Russian has never truly severed ties with the shadowy world of arms trafficking. Before his arrest, he reportedly spent decades diverting Soviet-made weapons to Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Rifles and ammunition that found their way into the arsenals of Al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, as well as a variety of sub-Saharan and Central American guerrilla groups—some of which were used in attacks against U.S. soldiers.
Bout was eventually captured in 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand, during a covert operation led by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and extradited to the United States a couple of years later. Initially, it seemed his influence had waned. Following his return to Russia and the subsequent election to the regional parliament of Ulyanovsk in July 2023 with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR)—a far-right pro-Putin faction—he finally appeared to have traded his camouflage for the guise of a suit and tie.
Yet, last August, he re-emerged in Moscow to negotiate arms shipments to the Arabian Peninsula.
According to unnamed European officials, representatives of the Yemeni rebels were in the Russian capital to negotiate the purchase of automatic weapons valued at $10 million. The expected deliveries, which have yet to occur, are said to primarily include AK-74 assault rifles, as well as potentially Kornet anti-tank missiles and air defense systems, which could enable the Yemeni guerrillas to strike U.S. positions in the region with greater effectiveness.
Officially, the Houthi emissaries maintain that they were negotiating the purchase of pesticides and vehicles, even visiting a Lada automobile factory for this purpose. However, their actual mission appears to be far from agricultural.
It remains unclear whether the deal was negotiated with the Kremlin’s tacit approval, which has dismissed the Journal’s report as “fake news.” Bout himself has refuted the allegations, labeling them as “unfounded accusations” in an interview with Russian state news agency TASS.
Bout’s lawyer, Steve Zissou, asserted that his client has not been involved in arms trading for over twenty years. However, the claim carries an ironic undertone: even if the Russian government authorized Bout to facilitate arms sales to the Houthis, Zissou argues, it wouldn’t differ much from what Washington is doing with Ukraine, which opposes Russia.
Born in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, then part of the Soviet Union, Bout began his career as a military translator fluent in French, English, and Portuguese. Following the collapse of the USSR, he put his language skills to use by selling Soviet military transport planes to United Nations peacekeeping forces in Africa.
His name became widely known in 2005 when the White House sanctioned him for trafficking arms in exchange for diamonds with African warlord Charles Taylor, a former president of Liberia convicted of war crimes in Sierra Leone.
Bout’s return to arms dealing is sure to spark considerable debate in the United States. In the past, many Republicans have criticized the perceived imbalance in considering an arms trafficker closely linked to anti-American guerrillas and Islamic extremists as a fair trade for Griner, who had been sentenced to nine years for possessing a few decigrams of cannabis oil in her luggage.
Ironically, both have returned to their former pursuits, with Griner contributing to the U.S. women’s basketball team winning gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
At the time of the swap, the White House explained that Bout’s name was the only one capable of overcoming Kremlin resistance to ensure Griner’s return, noting that the Russian had already served 12 years in prison in Illinois.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that the Biden administration had assessed the risks associated with the release of the arms dealer, concluding they would be “manageable.” In hindsight, those calculations may have proven misguided.
