Home from an American prison: Russia and the United States exchanged Bout for Greiner

A few hours ago, it became known about perhaps one of the most iconic prisoner exchanges between Moscow and Washington. Viktor Bout, convicted in the USA, is returning home. He was exchanged for Brittney Griner, she was serving time in Russia for drug smuggling. The story of Viktor Bout, who was sentenced by an American court to a term of a quarter of a century, is much more complicated and confusing, and clearly drags on a multi-season series, because a movie has already been made based on it. No one knew that Bout would be exchanged today. Even relatives of the Russian. In an interview with Izvestia, they said that they were informed about the exchange when Bout was already on the plane.

The long-awaited news came unexpectedly again. In a mean message from the Russian Foreign Ministry. Viktor Bout is returning from an American prison where he spent 12 long years.

“As a result of the efforts made, it was possible to agree with the American side on organizing the exchange of V.A. Bout for B. Greiner. The Russian citizen was returned to his homeland,” – stated in the comments of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Viktor Bout’s family is in a hurry to the airport. Even for them, everything that happened was a big surprise.

The President of the United States posts a photo of Brittney Griner calling directly from the Oval Office to board the plane that flies to America. She was exchanged for Booth. Biden came out to reporters with the wife of an American athlete.

“Finally, she is free and calm – she is going home. She lost several months of her life, experienced unnecessary psychological trauma. Now she has every right to privacy in the circle of loved ones,” Biden said during the address.

There are still few details. It is known that the exchange took place at the airport in Abu Dhabi. Greiner was flown there by private jet. This means that Viktor Bout is now returning to Russia on it. In America, he is called the “Lord of War”. The image of a “bad Russian” even managed to embody Nicolas Cage himself on the screen.

Booth’s defense insisted that it was this film that played a key role in the verdict of the American court. One of the jurors confessed: she watched it before, together with the rest, handed down a terrible sentence to the Russian – 25 years in prison.

“It is a very important completion of the process in both components and in the fact that Viktor Bout, a man who carried out complex assignments for our country, a man with a complex biography, will return home and that Russia has shown that the United States is not a world hegemon, that it is not can push their decision”, – said political scientist Dmitry Solonnikov.

Washington has been hunting for Booth since the mid-90s. Then the press for the first time wrote that the former military translator, the owner of several airlines at once, allegedly trades in weapons in countries where this is prohibited by an international embargo. In 2002, Bout was placed on the sanctions list. And he returns from South Africa, where he lived for many years, to Russia. To lure him out of the country, the Americans come up with a whole special operation. Undercover agents invite Bout to Thailand to discuss a lucrative deal – selling missiles to Colombian radicals. Many years later, American agents admitted that Bout did not give direct consent then.

And this was enough for Washington to demand the extradition of Viktor Bout to the United States. Russian pilot Viktor Yaroshenko is familiar with the dark scheme of American intelligence agencies firsthand. He returned to his homeland only this spring. For nine years, Yaroshenko was languished in an American colony, accused of organizing drug trafficking.

“The same people who fabricated the case against him, the same people fabricated the case against me. There are persecutions and, consider, repressions of Russians, Russians and Russian-speakers. We need to take adequate and maybe even tough measures, tough, good , bad, because there is nowhere else to go”– says the pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, whom the diplomats managed to exchange for the American Trevor Reed.

Despite the fact that Brittney Greiner was taken red-handed. At the beginning of the year, a service dog at the customs control of Sheremetyevo found banned hash oil in her things. The basketball player claimed that illegal drugs relieve pain from an old injury. In August Greiner was sentenced to 9 years in prison.

“This is a strong Russian position, which, despite all the intrigues that the American state is now building in our country, has nevertheless achieved the return of its citizen”– said State Duma deputy Maria Butina.

This exchange was a great success for Russian diplomacy. Although it is unlikely that the details of this operation will become known in the near future. The same Biden, for example, thanked the authorities of the United Arab Emirates for the active participation. But the main thing is already known: another Russian hostage of America will be in his homeland in the next few hours.