– Is a creep – VG

Updated just now

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President Joe Biden is behind the proposed exchange, which was announced by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday.

Blinken stated that the USA has put forward a concrete proposal to Moscow which could mean that Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan are brought home.

Griner is the basketball pro on trial for cannabis smuggling. Whelan is a former marine, convicted of espionage.

The United States believes that both are being held in detention unjustly. It was CNN who first reported who the US will put in the pot to get them out of Russia.

Viktor Bout serves one sentence of 25 years in the United States. Before he was caught 14 years ago, the Russian was the world’s most famous illegal arms dealer.

The life story of the “merchant of death” is said to have inspired the Hollywood film «Lord of War» from 2005, starring Nicolas Cage.

Blinken will discuss the exchange with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov later this week, in their first conversation since the war in Ukraine began.

– My hope is that I can speed up the efforts to get them home, the US Secretary of State said on Wednesday, pointing to Griner and Whelan.

Moscow confirmed Thursday to the news agency AFP that an agreement is being discussed, and that Russia hoped “the interests of both parties” would be safeguarded.

– I have nothing further to add as there is no agreement yet, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the news agency.

Neither party has wished to comment on whether Viktor Bout is part of the talks.

– Is a creep

American authorities are said to have internally discussed the prisoner exchange for several months. The Ministry of Justice is against it, for reasons of principle.

Russia has long been interested in an agreement that includes Viktor Bout, according to the report CNN. Last week, CIA director Bill Burns was asked what could be the explanation.

– That’s a good question, because Viktor Bout is a creep.

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The Russian was arrested in Thailand in 2008 by US drug agents posing as members of the Colombian guerrilla organization FARC.

After extradition, Bout was convicted for saying he was willing to trade anti-aircraft missiles and provide material to a terrorist organization that wanted to kill Americans.

Bout pleaded not guilty.

– No terrorist

The judge who gave him 25 years behind bars, Shira A. Scheindlin, said accordingly New York Times last month that in her opinion Bout was not a terrorist.

– He was a businessman, said the judge, who believes that the minimum sentence she had to impose on the Russian was too severe and that the proposed exchange is reasonable.

But the state attorney in Manhattan when Bout was convicted in 2012, Preet Bharara, maintained according CNN that he was enemy number one in the illegal international arms trade.

– He was put on trial after he said he was willing to supply a terrorist organization, willing to kill Americans, with a staggering number of weapons, the prosecutor said.

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Transported weapons

The arrest 14 years ago occurred after the Americans had hunted him for a decade.

Victor Bout was accused of having a fleet of transport planes that transported weapons to wars and conflicts around the world since the 1990s, from Liberia via Sierra Leone to Afghanistan.

The United States froze his American bank account in 2004, following allegations of illegal arms trafficking in Liberia. Bout himself maintained that he only arranged logistics in legitimate trading activities.

Douglas Farah, co-author of a book about the arms dealer, told Mother Jones magazine in 2007 that Victor Bout’s past life was a mystery.

According to his many passports, Bout was born in 1967 in Dushanbe in the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan, as the son of a bookkeeper and a mechanic.

After military education, he is said to have been an officer in the Russian army.

– Then the possibilities

– He was probably a lieutenant who simply saw the opportunities presented by three factors, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Farah argued to CNN.

• One was planes abandoned on runways everywhere, due to lack of fuel and maintenance.
• The other was warehouses with large quantities of weapons which were guarded by soldiers who were no longer paid.
• The third was growing demand for weapons from old Soviet allies and new armed groups in conflict zones on all continents.

Bout himself has said that he worked as an officer in Mozambique, others believe it was Angola. The UN began investigating his activities in the early nineties.

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For President Joe Biden, it is important to bring home Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, because it could give him a political victory before the midterm elections for Congress in November.

He decided to set aside the Ministry of Justice’s objections to the exchange of Victor Bout for the two Americans.

– Stretch far

“The president and his team will go to great lengths to get our people home,” White House spokesman John F. Kirby said, according to New York Times.

Griner has been imprisoned in Moscow since February, when customs officials at Sheremetyevo airport found hash oil-laced e-cigarettes in her suitcases.

The 31-year-old, who has two Olympic gold medals, says she had no idea they were there and that she had absolutely no intention of bringing them into Russia.

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According to one of his lawyers, Maria Blagovolina, Griner should have a prescription for the use of medical cannabis, which is popular among American athletes.

She is said to have said that she did not understand what she was signing when she was caught at customs.

Griner pleaded guilty in July. The trial against her will actually continue in August. She risks up to ten years in prison. The judgment must be in place before an exchange can take place.

– The Russians are cold-blooded

– I am terrified of staying here forever, Griner said in one an appeal to President Joe Biden to contribute to her release.

Paul Whelan (52) is a former marine and security chief who was arrested in a Moscow hotel in 2018 and charged with espionage.

In 2020, Whelan was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

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CIA Director Burns believes that American citizens are arrested abroad precisely for entering into barter deals which he calls terrible and shameful.

– The Russians are quite cold-blooded about this at the moment, Burns said last week.

– No threat

American officials and independent investigators believe, according to American media, that Bout must have connections to the Russian security service.

Former Marine Trevor Reed, who was released from Russian custody in a similar prisoner exchange in May, believes ABC is right to give Bout to Moscow.

– He has already been in prison for 15 years. He is no longer a threat.

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