Viktor Bout will campaign for a seat in the Ulyanov Oblast Legislative Assembly with the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR).
A Russian arms dealer freed in a prisoner swap for US basketball star Brittney Griner has been chosen as a far-right party candidate for a seat, according to state news agency RIA in the Russian regional legislature.
Viktor Bout, formerly dubbed “The Merchant of Death,” served 10 years of a 25-year sentence in US prisons on arms-trafficking charges until his release last December in the exchange with Griner , an Olympic gold medalist.
RIA quoted an official from the ultra-nationalist local organization of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) as saying that Bout had been nominated as a candidate for the legislative assembly of the Ulyanovsk region in central Russia.
Bout was arrested by US agents during a sting in Thailand in 2008.
The US Department of Justice described him as one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers, allegations Bout has always denied.
Griner was sentenced in 2022 in Russia to nine years in a penal colony for possessing vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is banned in Russia, after a trial that Washington called a sham. Griner has restarted his sports career.
Bout publicly joined the LDPR after his return to Russia. Despite its name, the LDPR holds far-right ultranationalist views and strongly supports President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The LDPR has already provided a home for Andrei Lugovoi, who is wanted in the UK for the 2006 murder of former KGB officer and Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko.
Lugovoi has been a member of the LDPR in Russia’s national parliament since 2007.
Litvinenko died after drinking tea poisoned with polonium-210, a radioactive isotope.
