Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was arrested in the United States and traded for American basketball player Brittney Griner on Thursday, accused the West of wanting to “destroy” and “divide” Russia in an interview published on Friday.
• Also read: Brittney Griner lands in Texas
• Also read: The American sports world rejoices in Russia’s release of Griner
“Westerners think they didn’t get us done in 1990 when the Soviet Union started to disintegrate,” Bout, a former Soviet officer, told Russian media RT.
“And the fact that we are trying to live, not governed by anyone and dependent on anyone, to be a truly independent power (…) Of course, that’s shocking news to them. They think they can destroy us again and divide Russia,” he continued.
On Thursday, after lengthy negotiations, Washington agreed to hand over the 55-year-old man, who was arrested during an American operation in Thailand in 2008, to Moscow in exchange for basketball player Brittney Griner, who was being held in Russia for months on a cannabis case hand over.
According to a United Nations report, Viktor Bout was born in Dushanbe, the capital of the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan, in 1967 and studied at the Military Institute for Foreign Languages in Moscow before joining the Air Force.
From 1991 and the fall of the USSR, according to his accusers, he was able to use the post-Soviet chaos to acquire a slew of low-cost weapons on military bases, which he left to himself and from officers seeking funds to get rich or just survive.
He burst into American popular culture in 2005 with the release of his life-inspired film, Lord of War, starring Nicolas Cage as an arms dealer hunted by Interpol.
In his interview with RT published on Friday, Viktor Bout commented on this Hollywood-forged reputation.
“If they had come to me and asked me questions, no doubt they would have come up with a more interesting story. To me, Hollywood is just a Washington propaganda organ right now,” he swept.