The Russian arms dealer is back in Moscow after the prisoner swap for Brittney Griner. Kremlin officials say it’s a ‘capitulation by America’ – but other believe Bout is a declining asset
The victory lap in Moscow began even before the An-148 jet carrying the notorious arms dealer once dubbed the “merchant of death” touched down at Vnukovo airport.
Viktor Bout, arrested in 2008, had been returned to Russia more than 14 years after his arrest, much of that time spent incarcerated in the US. “The game is over,” he had said as US Drug Enforcement Administration agents and Thai police burst into a hotel conference room where he thought he was meeting members of Farc, the Colombian rebel group – but they were actually undercover US agents.
