Viktor Bout

Viktor Anatolyevich Bout (/buːt/; Russian: Ви́ктор Анато́льевич Бут, romanized: Viktor Anatolyevich But; born 13 January 1967) is a Russian arms dealer and politician. A weapons manufacturer and former Soviet military translator, he used his companies to smuggle arms from Eastern Europe to Africa and the Middle East during the 1990s and early 2000s. Bout gained the epithet the "Merchant of Death" after British minister Peter Hain read a report to the United Nations in 2003 on Bout's wide-reaching operations, extensive clientele, and willingness to bypass embargoes.

In a 2008 US sting operation Bout was arrested in Thailand on terrorism charges by the Royal Thai Police in cooperation with American authorities and Interpol. The United States Ambassador to Thailand Eric G. John requested his extradition, which was mandated by the Supreme Court of Thailand in 2010. Bout was accused of intending to sell arms to a United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informer pretending to represent the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for use against American forces in Colombia, but Bout denied the charges and predicted an acquittal.

In 2011 Bout was convicted by a jury at a federal court in Manhattan, of conspiracy to kill American citizens and officials, delivery of anti-aircraft missiles, and providing aid to a terrorist organization; he was sentenced to the minimum 25 years' imprisonment. From 2012 until 2022, Bout was held at the United States Penitentiary, Marion. In 2022, he was released in a prisoner exchange for American basketball player Brittney Griner, who had been sentenced, in August 2022, to 9 years of imprisonment for bringing 0.7g of cannabis oil into Russia. Bout had served 10 years in prison before his release in December 2022.

After returning to Russia, Bout joined the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia in 2022 and won a seat in the Legislative Assembly of Ulyanovsk Oblast as a member of the LDPR on 2 July 2023.

Bout's origins are unclear. United Nations documents and Bout himself both state his birthplace as Dushanbe, Tajik SSR, Soviet Union (now the capital of Tajikistan), and that his date of birth is most likely 13 January 1967, although several other dates are possible. He has an older brother named Sergei Bout.

Bout became a Russian citizen following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. According to the UN Security Council Committee on Liberia, Bout holds at least four passports. A number of sources referred to Bout as a Tajik national or Tajik-born.

Bout served in the Soviet Armed Forces. There is no definite information on his military career except that he graduated from the Soviet Military Institute of Foreign Languages in the late 1980s. Bout's training allowed him to become a polyglot and master five foreign languages: Portuguese, English, French, Arabic, and Farsi. He is reported to be fluent in Esperanto, which he learned at age 12 in the early 1980s as a member of the Dushanbe Esperanto club. Bout's personal website stated that he served in the Soviet Army as a translator, holding the rank of lieutenant.

It is unknown what rank Bout held while in military. In a radio interview with Radio Echo Moskvy, Bout himself said he retired with "an officer's rank." Other reports identified Bout as a former major. Bout is thought to have been discharged from the Soviet Army upon its dissolution in 1991 with the rank of lieutenant colonel, whereupon he started an air freight business. Other sources state he was a major in the GRU, an officer in the Soviet Air Forces, that he graduated from a Soviet military intelligence training program, or an operative of the KGB.