Russian ‘merchant of death’ freed by Biden reportedly selling weapons to Houthis

Viktor Bout is allegedly dealing arms to the Iran-backed group less than two years after he was released by the US

Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer known as “The Merchant of Death”, who was freed by Joe Biden in 2022, is reportedly selling Russian weapons to the West’s enemies once again.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Bout was dealing arms to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen less than two years after he was freed in exchange for Brittney Griner, the US basketball player.
“When Houthi emissaries went to Moscow in August to negotiate the purchase of $10 million [£7.7 million] worth of automatic weapons, they encountered a familiar face: the moustachioed Bout,” it reported, citing sources.
Houthi rebels have fired missiles and drones at Western ships in the Red Sea as revenge for Israel’s incursions into Gaza and Lebanon.
Reports in September said Russia had negotiated deals to transfer anti-ship missiles to the Houthis. However, The Wall Street Journal reported that the deals involving Bout were restricted to small arms.
The Wall Street Journal also reported quotes of “people familiar with the matter” and that Bout had brokered the arms deal with “two Houthi representatives who had travelled to Moscow under the cover of buying pesticides and vehicles and visited a Lada factory”.
The sources added that they didn’t know if Bout was acting directly for the Kremlin or just with the Kremlin’s tacit approval.
Iran has become a close ally of the Kremlin since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The Kremlin increasingly views Iran’s allies in the Middle East as useful for unsettling Western diplomatic alliances and economies.
The Wall Street Journal said that the first two arms deliveries negotiated by Bout will be AK-47 rifles, one of the most durable rifles ever produced and a successful Kremlin export since it was designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1947.
“During the trip, Houthi representatives also discussed other weapons the Russian side might potentially sell, including Kornet anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft weapons,” the newspaper quoted European officials as saying. “The deliveries could start as early as October to the port of Hodeidah under the cover of food supplies.”
Bout was freed on the tarmac of Al Bateen Executive Airport in Abu Dhabi on Dec 8 2022 in a scene reminiscent of a Cold War spy swap. He was flown in on a private jet and handed over to dark-suited Russian diplomats who then released Ms Griner.
Bout had already served 12 years of his 25-year sentence in a US maximum security prison, and reportedly kept a poster of Vladimir Putin on the wall of his cell.
Since his release, Bout has become a politician for Russia’s ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party and an occasional pro-war, pro-Kremlin pundit on Russian TV.
Republican politicians criticised the swap as giving in to hostage-taking. They said that Ms Griner, who was arrested at Moscow airport a week before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb 24 2022, had been used as a pawn to secure the release of Bout.
She had accidentally flown into one of Moscow’s airports with liquid cannabis in a vapouriser. For this, she was given a prison sentence of 14 years of hard labour.
Analysts in Ukraine said Mr Biden should have known that Bout would start dealing arms for the Kremlin.
“The Biden administration had previously assessed the risks of Bout’s release as ‘acceptable’. It was believed he wouldn’t go back into the arms trade but would join politics,” said Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics. “Well, now those ‘acceptable’ risks have been realised. I fear he is just starting.”
Bout’s life inspired the 2005 film Lord of War, which starred Nicolas Cage as Yuri Orlov, an arms dealer loosely based on Bout.
For almost two decades, Bout was one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers, selling weapons to rogue states, rebel groups and murderous warlords in Africa, Asia and South America. He was arrested in Thailand in 2008 and then extradited to the US.
The Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment.