Who is hiding behind Viktor Bout, this “merchant of death” become a real myth in the world of arms trafficking for decades? Since his arrest in Thailand in 2008, his extradition to the United States after two years of diplomatic-legal battle and his sentence in 2012 to twenty-five years in prison, Moscow has sought by all means to recover him.
His release on Thursday, December 8, in exchange for American basketball player Brittney Griner, who has been detained in Russia for many months, revives old questions about the true profession of this former student of the Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow who, in his American cell , kept a photo of Vladimir Putin.
Lord of War
This mustachioed man with undeniable charisma, who inspired the hero of the Hollywood thriller Lord of War (2005), with a Nicolas Cage portraying a most cynical arms dealer, had all the characteristics of a professional spy. In Moscow, at the Institute of Foreign Languages, he trained military intelligence officers.
Viktor Bout has always presented himself as a simple businessman. Very quickly, multiplying shell companies to transport weapons, he helped the high Soviet officers to make money by selling off the equipment of their units. Taking advantage of the overabundance of Soviet arms abandoned at the fall of the USSR, it fueled a series of fratricidal civil wars, particularly in Africa. In fact, Viktor Bout maintained links with all kinds of rebel groups or rogue states – and therefore with the governments behind the scenes supporting them.
For his trade, as for his hypothetical political missions, Viktor Bout had a strong asset, specific to members of the spy services: polyglot, he speaks eight languages. And another great specialty: military aircraft. In addition to foreign languages, Viktor Bout studied aeronautics and then joined the Air Force. Later, his trade in old Soviet Antonov and Tupolev planes made his fortune. It operates up to sixty aircraft, operated by Russian pilots capable of landing anywhere.
“God knows the truth”
With its own fleet of cargo planes, it delivers weapons all over the world. A traffic that could not be carried out without political connections at the highest level and other cover of the intelligence services. Thwarting international embargoes, Viktor Bout sold out to all the rebel movements on the planet, especially in Africa. But also in Afghanistan where it would have equipped both the Taliban insurgents and their enemies in the pro-Western Northern Alliance.
In 2008, Viktor Bout ends up being arrested in Thailand, trapped by American agents. He is on trial in the United States for “support for terrorists”, “conspiracy to kill Americans”, “arms trafficking and money laundering”. Prosecutors were asking for life. He was finally sentenced in New York in April 2012 to twenty-five years in prison.
“I am not guilty, I never intended to kill anyone, I never intended to sell weapons to anyone”, he defends himself then. Before insisting: “God knows the truth. »
Obviously, the Russian Foreign Ministry also knew the truth. He never stopped working to obtain his return to Russia. It is now done.