Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer who was freed in a prisoner swap for Brittney Griner, has launched a campaign for office in Russia.
Bout, 56, joined the far-right Liberal Democratic Party shortly after he was freed in December 2022.
The party announced Sunday that Bout will campaign for a spot on the local assembly in the Ulyanovsk region, about 400 miles east of Moscow, Reuters reported.
Despite its name, the LDPR is known for its extreme right-wing, ultranationalist politics and has fully backed Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. It holds 23 of 450 seats in the Russian legislature, where Putin’s United Russia party has a massive majority.
Bout has become a minor celebrity in Russia since he returned in December. He has also publicly praised Putin and the war.
In 2008, Bout was arrested in Thailand in a successful sting operation by U.S. federal agents. Known as the “Merchant of Death,” he was accused of selling weapons to terrorist groups across the world. U.S. agents got him by posing as Colombian rebels.
“This marks the end of the reign of one of the world’s most-wanted arms traffickers,” then-U.S. Attorney for Manhattan Michael Garcia said at the time.
Bout’s alleged clients included Charles Taylor in Liberia, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and the Taliban in Afghanistan. He was convicted in 2011 on four counts of conspiring to kill Americans and sentenced in 2012 to 25 years in prison.
But only 10 years later, Bout was released in a prisoner swap for Griner. The WNBA superstar and Olympic gold medalist was arrested outside Moscow in February 2022, days before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Russian authorities said Griner was carrying marijuana vape cartridges in her luggage. She was eventually sentenced to nine years behind bars, but served only a few months before the exchange.