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Viktor Bout, Arms Dealer in Prisoner Swap, Remembered as ‘Monster’

Viktor Bout, the former Russian military officer convicted of illegal arms trafficking in U.S. courts in 2012, and who was serving a 25-year prison sentence, has had his sentence commuted and is being repatriated as part of a prisoner exchange that freed United States basketball star Brittney Griner from prison in Russia.

Bout, nicknamed the “Merchant of Death,” started an air freight business in the years after the fall of the Soviet Union, which prosecutors alleged he used to transport military-grade weapons around the world, often supplying arms to combatants on opposing sides of the same conflicts.

In an indictment of Bout issued in February 2010, the U.S. Justice Department alleged, “Bout, an international weapons trafficker since the 1990s, has carried out a massive weapons-trafficking business by assembling a fleet of cargo airplanes capable of transporting weapons and military equipment to various parts of the world, including Africa, South America, and the Middle East. The arms that Bout has sold or brokered have fueled conflicts and supported regimes in Afghanistan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Sudan.”

The Russian government has long claimed that Bout was wrongly convicted and unjustly imprisoned. He had, most recently, been held in a federal prison facility in the city of Marion in the U.S. state of Illinois.

Griner had spent 10 months in prison in Russia after being arrested at a Moscow airport with a small amount of cannabis oil in an electronic cigarette cartridge in her luggage. Sentenced to nine years in prison, she was recently transferred to a prison labor camp.

Early life

Little is known for certain about Bout’s early life, other than that he grew up in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and was conscripted into the Russian military at age 18. He is believed to be multilingual, and is thought to have studied at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow. The institute has close ties to Russian intelligence services.

Bout appears to have left military service around the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union, and moved to the United Arab Emirates, where he purchased four Soviet-era Antonov-8 cargo planes and established an air freight firm called Air Cess.

Bout’s fleet of planes eventually numbered around 60, and much of his business was legitimate. According to Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun, authors of the book Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible, Bout’s contracts included some with the U.S. government for ferrying reconstruction supplies into Afghanistan and some with the United Nations for delivering humanitarian aid.

Active in Africa

It was arms dealing, however, that made Bout both internationally famous and extremely wealthy. In the years following the breakup of the Soviet Union, vast quantities of military weapons appeared on the black market, and prosecutors and journalists have produced evidence that Bout transported weapons to conflict zones around the globe, often to parties that were subject to international arms embargoes.

Bout was especially active in Africa, and in the 1990s is believed to have supplied arms to both the government of Angola and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) who were fighting against it.

Similarly, Bout is believed to have supplied arms to both sides of the civil war in what was then Zaire, and is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, and to have sold arms used in conflicts in Rwanda, Sudan, and Somalia.

Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia who was convicted of war crimes for his role in the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone, is also believed to have been one of Bout’s clients.

‘Truly a monster’

David M. Crane, the founding chief prosecutor of the U.N. Special Court for Sierra Leone, saw the results of Bout’s arms dealing in West Africa up close.

“He was truly a monster in his own right,” Crane told VOA. “This is someone who spread his arms and ammunition around the world, in very dark corners of the world, causing pain and suffering wherever he went.”

Crane, who went on to found the non-profit Global Accountability Network, which seeks justice for the victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity, said that the destruction wrought in Sierra Leone by the forces Bout armed was extensive.

“He was the main supplier of arms and ammunition…to that terrible conflict in West Africa, which saw the murder, rape, maiming and mutilation of over 1.2 million human beings,” Chase said.

While Africa may have been Bout’s primary focus, he was also active in other parts of the world. For example, he is believed to have sold weapons and equipment to both the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Northern Alliance that opposed it in the late 1990s.

Captured

By the late 2000s, Bout was subject to multiple arrest warrants around the world, and rarely left Russia, where the government of Vladimir Putin refused to extradite him.

In 2008, however, he was lured to Bangkok, Thailand, for a meeting with people he believed to be representatives of Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC, the rebel group that for decades sought to overthrow the Colombian government before a 2016 peace accord. FARC was, at the time, designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. government.

In fact, Bout was actually meeting with informants for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, who recorded him offering to sell them hundreds of surface-to-air missiles and other heavy weaponry. In the conversation, Bout acknowledged that the missiles, in particular, were to be used to bring down U.S. planes flying drug interdiction missions.

Bout was arrested on the spot by Thai law enforcement, and two years later he was extradited to the U.S., where he was charged with several crimes, including breaking weapons embargoes, conspiring to kill U.S. officials, and various money laundering and wire fraud charges.

In 2012, Bout was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Long process

In a statement on Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry characterized the negotiations that led to Bout’s release as long, with the U.S. resisting demands that he be made part of the deal.

“Washington was categorically refusing to engage in dialogue on putting the Russian national on the exchange scheme,” the foreign ministry told the news outlet TASS. “Nevertheless, the Russian Federation continued to actively work towards the release of our fellow countryman.”

In remarks announcing Griner’s release Thursday morning, U.S. President Joe Biden did not mention Bout, but criticized Russia for holding the basketball star. He said that Griner “lost months of her life [and] experienced a needless trauma.”

Biden also referred to another high-profile American detainee in Russia, former Marine Paul Whelan, who has been held there for four years.

“We’ve not forgotten about Paul Whelan, who has been unjustly detained in Russia for years,” Biden said. “This was not a choice of which American to bring home….Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Brittney’s. And while we have not yet succeeded in securing Paul’s release, we are not giving up. We will never give up.”
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Democrats Secure 51-seat Majority in the US Senate with GA Runoff Win

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters Wednesday that Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock’s runoff election win was an important boost for Democrats.

“The practical effects of the 51-seat majority — it’s big. It’s significant,” he said. “We can breathe a sigh of relief.” 

The Senate had stood for the past two years at a 50-50 tie with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote. But with Warnock winning re-election to his first full six-year term in office, Democrats have now gained a seat and secured a clear majority for the rest of President Joe Biden’s first term in office.

“After a hard-fought campaign, or should I say campaigns? It is my honor to utter the four most powerful words ever spoken in a democracy: The people have spoken,” Warnock told supporters at a victory party late Tuesday.

In the November election, both Warnock and his Republican challenger Herschel Walker failed to secure a 50% majority of the vote required in Georgia to win, leading to the runoff. As of midday Wednesday, Warnock led Walker by a little under three percentage points with 95% of votes counted.

In a concession speech in front of his supporters Tuesday, Walker said, “I don’t want any of you to stop dreaming. I don’t want any of you to stop believing in America. I want you to believe in America and continue to believe in the Constitution and believe in our elected officials. Most of all, continue to pray for them.”

Walker was one of multiple Senate candidates nationwide who were endorsed by former President Donald Trump but who lost their elections. During the campaign, Walker faced allegations he had paid for abortions and engaged in domestic abuse. His campaign accused Warnock of unfairly evicting tenants from properties he owns. Warnock ultimately won out in the runoff that saw record voter turnout.

Schumer told reporters that voters sent a clear message about Republican priorities, particularly in the wake of the June U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe vs. Wade, the court’s 1973 ruling that legalized abortion.

“The public began to realize how far right these MAGA Republicans had gone. The Dobbs decision was the crystallization of that. Of course, when people said, ‘Wow, these MAGA Republicans are serious about turning the dial all the way back,” he said.

Dobbs vs. Jackson was the case that led to the Supreme Court ruling.

Schumer would not discuss priorities for the new Congress but did acknowledge the clear majority gives Democrats a significant advantage in bringing their legislation and nominees up for votes.

“It’s important to the committee structure — that was a shared committee responsibility,” Amy Dacey, executive director of the Stein Institute of Policy and Politics at American University, told VOA. “Now you’ll have clear chairs who drive the calendar, drive what issues will come up in front of the Senate.”

The U.S. Congress, however, will be divided when lawmakers are sworn in for a new session in January, with Republicans holding a slim majority in the House of Representatives.

Some information provided by Reuters.
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Republican, Democratic Senators Predict Continuing US Support for Ukraine

The U.S. Congress is considering the White House’s request for $38 billion in additional support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia aggression. Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Senator Jim Risch say they believe the aid will be approved in the coming weeks.

The two senators have been strong supporters of aid to Ukraine, part of bipartisan congressional support that, if the latest appropriation bill passes, will deliver more than $100 billion in aid to Ukraine this year.

The senators sat down with VOA Georgian Service’s managing editor Ia Meurmishvili on November 30 to discuss U.S. policy toward Ukraine and Russia, and the likelihood that Congress will continue backing Ukraine in 2023.

Shaheen said the lessons from World War II are still relevant in the context of Ukraine, and the West must stop Russia before it invades other countries in Europe. On providing arms to Ukraine, Risch said the U.S. should not engage in self-deterrence out of concern that Russia might escalate the war. He said Russian President Vladimir Putin should instead be thinking about how to avoid U.S. escalation.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: NATO reaffirmed its 2008 commitment that Ukraine will one day become a member. Do you think that reaffirmation is advancing Ukraine’s NATO membership? And when do you think Ukraine can join NATO?

Shaheen: Well sadly, Ukraine right now is engaged in a brutal war from Russia’s unprovoked invasion. But I think the aspiration that Ukraine should be able to join NATO is very important. And for the EU, for NATO, for the Western alliance to support them as they are fighting this war against Russia is absolutely critical. Because we can’t allow dictators like Vladimir Putin to think they can upend the international, rules-based order and just take over any country because they might like to. And then, to commit war crimes and atrocities, to bomb civilians, to bomb hospitals and schools. … It’s unthinkable in a civilized society. So, we need to do everything we can to support the Ukrainians.

Risch: I agree with that. I would add that NATO is as strong as I have ever seen NATO, and I think it is getting stronger every day. There is no deterioration. NATO is committed to do what NATO was formed to do. Article 5 means just what it says — an attack on one is an attack on all. We have said clearly to the Russians that we will not give up one inch of NATO ground, whether it’s in the Baltics, in London, or in Los Angeles. We will not give up one inch of NATO ground, and we will all come shoulder to shoulder to defend it.

When it comes to Ukraine joining NATO, Ukraine or any other country is welcome to join NATO so long as they meet the requirements. We feel strongly about that. If Ukraine meets the requirements, and Ukraine wants to join NATO, then Ukraine should be let in. Neither Russia nor any other country should be able to stand up and say, ‘No, you can’t go where you want to go.’ Every country is sovereign and should have that right to enter any kind of alliance they want to for their defense.

See related video:

VOA: The Biden administration has requested an additional $38 billion for assistance to Ukraine. Do you think it will be approved before recess?

Shaheen: I do. I think there’s still strong bipartisan and bicameral support for Ukraine. We understand that Ukraine is fighting for democracies around the world, and the role of democracies is on the line here in this war.

Risch: Putin has already lost this war. He set out to occupy that country. It is obvious to the world he will never occupy that country. If you talk with Ukrainians, they will fight in the street with broomsticks if they have to, but the Russians will never occupy that country. So, what’s his exit ramp? I don’t know, but he better find one.

VOA: Do you support the idea of providing Ukraine with the Patriot missiles and the other long-range artillery they have been asking for, which the administration has been hesitant to provide?

Risch: I’ve wanted to ratchet up for some time. The Ukrainians are fighting with one hand tied behind their back. They’ve got a country adjacent to them that has invaded them and is committing all of these atrocities. On top of that, over the recent weeks, [the Russians] have done everything they can to totally eliminate [Ukraine’s] infrastructure for heat and electricity and everything else. We can’t stand by and watch that happen.

You know, some people in the administration — not all of them — say, ‘Oh, you know, we don’t want to escalate.’ That’s nonsense. I want Putin to wake up in the morning worried about what he’s going to do that might cause us to escalate. We have to escalate, or you lose the war. So, I’m all in. I think the Patriots are fine. If it was up to me — even from the beginning — I said we should give them planes. When we fought in Korea, when we fought in Vietnam, the Russians supplied the enemy with jet aircraft and trained the pilots. It’s time to return the favor, as far as I’m concerned.

Shaheen: I think that’s the intent of the U.S. We’re working closely with our allies and with the Ukrainians on what they need and supplying them as soon as we can with the weapons that they need. I think we need to continue to do that.

VOA: The world, especially the West, is beginning to talk about how Ukraine will emerge from this war — that it will be a united, democratic, sovereign country in Europe that will only get stronger from this point on. We don’t know much about how Russia will emerge from it. How do you see Russia after this war?

Shaheen: We had a hearing today in the Foreign Relations Committee with the nominee to be the ambassador to Russia. One of the things we talked about in that hearing is the difficult balance that the new ambassador is going to have in trying to keep an open channel of communication to the leadership in Russia, and at the same time expressing our strong opposition to what Russia is doing in the war in Ukraine, to express the concerns that we have about Russia walking away from the new START nuclear negotiations, about their human rights record, and the American detainees that they have in their prisons. So, it’s going to be a challenge.

I had a chance to speak with Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is an amazing, very courageous human rights activist, as he was planning to go back to Russia. One of the things he said to me when I said, you know, ‘You’re going to be in prison. Why are you doing this?’ He said, ‘Because the Russian people are better than the government of Russia, and we need to make the world see that.’ So, it’s my hope that at some point, the Russian people will have that opportunity for self-governance and to determine their own future.

Risch: First of all, I’ve said all along — when this is over, it’s not over. Russia is going to suffer from this for a long, long time. The world made a mistake when the Iron Curtain came down and Russia was welcomed to the international stage, and everyone started doing business with them. The Europeans really relied on them for energy and that sort of thing. Nobody even conceived that they would start a medieval war in the 21st century. Seven hundred companies from America have pulled out. They’re not going back there. We talk to the Europeans all the time. They’ve had it with Russia. Even if Putin disappeared tomorrow and you brought in a moderate — if there is such a thing in Russia — I still think it would take decades before the Russians can get back any kind of credibility that this isn’t going to happen again.

VOA: Thus far, Congress has been united on the issues of support toward Ukraine, toward the region, NATO and such. There are some concerns that with the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, that [unity] may change.

Risch: Look, there’s 535 members of Congress —100 in the Senate, 435 in the House. We are as diverse a group as you could possibly find. We are a true representation of America top to bottom. As a result of that, there is about every view you could possibly want there. No matter what issue you have, with very few exceptions, you’re always going to have dissent. We were born in dissent. We dissent all the time. Having said that, when things are appropriate, we come together.

On Ukraine, there is strong, strong support in both houses and both parties. Are there a handful of people who are dissidents? Yes. But the media here focuses on those that do dissent. That’s the American way, and that’s the way it should be. People have the right to express an opinion on either side, and then you vote and get behind the vote. I think the media has asked me this question a number of times, and I’ve said over and over again that the dissent on this is de minimis, and it’s way overreported.

Shaheen: We had a bipartisan, bicameral delegation in Halifax [Nova Scotia] a couple of weeks ago, nine of us from the House and Senate. We were all virtually aligned on support for Ukraine and the need to continue that support. And that included prominent members of the House, as well as prominent members of the Senate. So I think Senator Risch is absolutely right.
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Democratic Sen. Warnock Wins Georgia Runoff Against Walker

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock defeated Republican challenger Herschel Walker in a Georgia runoff election Tuesday, ensuring Democrats an outright majority in the Senate for the rest of President Joe Biden’s current term and capping an underwhelming midterm cycle for the GOP in the last major vote of the year. 

With Warnock’s second runoff victory in as many years, Democrats will have a 51-49 Senate majority, gaining a seat from the current 50-50 split with John Fetterman’s victory in Pennsylvania. There will be divided government, however, with Republicans having narrowly flipped House control. 

“After a hard-fought campaign — or, should I say, campaigns — it is my honor to utter the four most powerful words ever spoken in a democracy: The people have spoken,” Warnock, 53, told jubilant supporters who packed a downtown Atlanta hotel ballroom. 

“I often say that a vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire for ourselves and for our children,” declared Warnock, a Baptist pastor and his state’s first Black senator. 

“Georgia, you have been praying with your lips and your legs, your hands and your feet, your heads and your hearts. You have put in the hard work, and here we are standing together.” 

In last month’s election, Warnock led Walker by 37,000 votes out of almost 4 million cast but fell short of the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff. The senator appeared to be headed for a wider final margin in Tuesday’s runoff, with Walker, a football legend at the University of Georgia and in the NFL, unable to overcome a bevy of damaging allegations, including claims that he paid for two former girlfriends’ abortions despite supporting a national ban on the procedure. 

“The numbers look like they’re not going to add up,” Walker, an ally and friend of former President Donald Trump, told supporters late Tuesday at the College Football Hall of Fame in downtown Atlanta. “There’s no excuses in life, and I’m not going to make any excuses now because we put up one heck of a fight.” 

Democrats’ Georgia victory solidifies the state’s place as a Deep South battleground two years after Warnock and fellow Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff won 2021 runoffs that gave the party Senate control just months after Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate in 30 years to win Georgia. Voters returned Warnock to the Senate in the same cycle they reelected Republican Gov. Brian Kemp by a comfortable margin and chose an all-GOP slate of statewide constitutional officers. 

Walker’s defeat bookends the GOP’s struggles this year to win with flawed candidates cast from Trump’s mold, a blow to the former president as he builds his third White House bid ahead of 2024. 

Democrats’ new outright majority in the Senate means the party will no longer have to negotiate a power-sharing deal with Republicans and won’t have to rely on Vice President Kamala Harris to break as many tie votes. 

National Democrats celebrated Tuesday, with Biden tweeting a photo of his congratulatory phone call to the senator. “Georgia voters stood up for our democracy, rejected Ultra MAGAism, and … sent a good man back to the Senate,” Biden tweeted, referencing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. 

About 1.9 million runoff votes were cast in Georgia by mail and during early voting. A robust Election Day turnout added about 1.4 million more, slightly more than the Election Day totals in November and in 2020. 

Total turnout still trailed the 2021 runoff turnout of about 4.5 million. Voting rights groups pointed to changes made by state lawmakers after the 2020 election that shortened the period for runoffs, from nine weeks to four, as a reason for the decline in early and mail voting. 

Warnock emphasized his willingness to work across the aisle and his personal values, buoyed by his status as senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. once preached. 

Walker benefited during the campaign from nearly unmatched name recognition from his football career yet was dogged by questions about his fitness for office. 

A multimillionaire businessman, Walker faced questions about his past, including his exaggerations of his business achievements, academic credentials and philanthropic activities. 

In his personal life, Walker faced new attention on his ex-wife’s previous accounts of domestic violence, including details that he once held a gun to her head and threatened to kill her. He has never denied those specifics and wrote of his violent tendencies in a 2008 memoir that attributed the behavior to mental illness. 

As a candidate, he sometimes mangled policy discussions, attributing the climate crisis to China’s “bad air” overtaking “good air” from the United States and arguing that diabetics could manage their health by “eating right,” a practice that isn’t enough for insulin-dependent diabetic patients. 

On Tuesday, Atlanta voter Tom Callaway praised the Republican Party’s strength in Georgia and said he’d supported Kemp in the opening round of voting. But he said he cast his ballot for Warnock because he didn’t think “Herschel Walker has the credentials to be a senator.” 

“I didn’t believe he had a statement of what he really believed in or had a campaign that made sense,” Callaway said. 

Walker, meanwhile, sought to portray Warnock as a yes-man for Biden. He sometimes made the attack in especially personal terms, accusing Warnock of “being on his knees, begging” at the White House — a searing charge for a Black challenger to level against a Black senator about his relationship with a white president. 

Warnock promoted his Senate accomplishments, touting a provision he sponsored to cap insulin costs for Medicare patients. He hailed deals on infrastructure and maternal health care forged with Republican senators, mentioning those GOP colleagues more than he did Biden or other Washington Democrats. 

Warnock distanced himself from Biden, whose approval ratings have lagged as inflation remains high. After the general election, Biden promised to help Warnock in any way he could, even if it meant staying away from Georgia. Bypassing the president, Warnock decided instead to campaign with former President Barack Obama in the days before the runoff election. 

Walker, meanwhile, avoided campaigning with Trump until the campaign’s final day, when the pair conducted a conference call Monday with supporters. 

Walker joins failed Senate nominees Dr. Mehmet Oz of Pennsylvania, Blake Masters of Arizona, Adam Laxalt of Nevada and Don Bolduc of New Hampshire as Trump loyalists who ultimately lost races that Republicans once thought they would — or at least could — win. 
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Criminal Referrals Coming From January 6 US Capitol Riot Probe

The U.S. congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol last year is planning to make referrals to the Justice Department recommending criminal prosecutions, panel chairman Bennie Thompson said Tuesday.

Thompson did not disclose whether former President Donald Trump would be one of the targets.

He said the nine-member panel is meeting later Tuesday to discuss specifics of its recommendations as it wraps up its probe of the mayhem that unfolded as about 2,000 Trump supporters stormed into the Capitol Building to try to block certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

“At this point, there’ll be a separate document coming from me” to the Justice Department, Thompson told reporters at the Capitol.

AG will decide whether to bring charges

The decision of whether to bring charges against Trump or any of his advisers rests with Attorney General Merrick Garland. To this day, Trump contends without evidence that he was cheated out of reelection by illegal voting and vote-counting. He has announced another run for the presidency in 2024.

Garland appointed career prosecutor Jack Smith as special counsel to oversee the federal investigation of Trump’s actions leading up to the rampage at the Capitol and whether the former president illegally took highly classified government documents with him to his oceanside retreat in Florida after he left office.

‘We will stop the steal,’ Trump says before the riot

Just before the riot unfolded, Trump told supporters at a rally near the White House, “Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal.”

He concluded, “We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

More than 950 of the rioters have been charged, and more than 450 have pleaded guilty or have been convicted so far. Some have received prison terms of more than four years.

At nine hearings in recent months, witnesses before the House investigative panel testified how Trump privately, along with public admonitions, pushed then-Vice President Mike Pence to override the state-by-state Electoral College vote count that showed Biden had won.

But Pence refused, and after the rioters were cleared from the Capitol, Congress affirmed in the early hours of January 7, 2021, that Biden had won.

The U.S. does not elect its president by a national popular vote but rather through state-by-state voting, with the most populous states holding the most Electoral College votes and thus the most sway in determining the national outcome.

Biden won the national balloting over Trump by more than 7 million votes.
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