(Photo : SAEED KHAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was released via a Russia-US prisoner swap recently, was reportedly spotted at the Russian-annexed city of Luhansk.
Viktor Bout, a Russian weapons dealer released in the prisoner swap involving American basketball star Brittney Griner, reportedly traveled to Luhansk, an eastern Ukrainian city annexed by Russia, on Saturday.
According to a report from the Russian official news agency RIA Novosti on Sunday, Bout said he was happy to visit Luhansk for the first time and was optimistic that the seized territory "would soon be peaceful."
Viktor Bout was reportedly spotted at an occasion in the city, according to the local Russian media. The freed prisoner was present during the inaugural ceremony of the Luhansk chapter of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), per Republic World.
Ultranationalist LDPR leader Leonid Slutsky said his group was forced to take a different path to Luhansk on two separate occasions in the vicinity, where high-precision weaponry was being put to use, according to a report from CNN.
However, he noted that the situation could not derail their plans, as Russia and Donbas will always be a united front. The party leader stressed that they would pursue the visit in any way possible amid the Russia-Ukraine war.
'Merchant of Death' Supports Russia's Attack on Ukraine
In an interview with Russia RT last week, Viktor Bout said he backs Moscow's "special military operation" in Ukraine "wholeheartedly" and would go as a volunteer combatant if given a chance.
The area is ruled by Moscow-backed separatists who call themselves the Luhansk People's Republic. This republic is not acknowledged by Ukraine or any other country in the world than Russia and its ally Syria.
Russia attacked and controlled the eastern Ukrainian oblast of Luhansk in 2014, and the resulting "LNR," or Luhansk People's Republic, is a phony state put up by the Kremlin, according to an article from The New Voice of Ukraine, published by Yahoo! News.
Until his recent release in a prisoner swap, Viktor Bout had been incarcerated in the United States on charges of illicit weapons dealing and aiding Colombian terrorists. Returning to Russia, he declared his intention to run for office and joined the LDPR.
On December 8, Viktor Bout was swapped for WNBA player Brittney Griner, who had been found guilty of narcotics smuggling in Russia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates played the role of mediators during the talks on the swap.
LDPR: A Controversial Party
After being convicted of conspiracy to murder US citizens, purchasing and exporting anti-aircraft missiles, and supplying material support to a terrorist organization, former Soviet military officer Bout, also known as the "Merchant of Death," was sentenced to 25 years in prison in the United States before being swapped.
The release discussions were made more difficult by the fact that the prisoner exchange occurred in the ninth month of Russia Ukraine war, further straining already tense relations between Washington and Moscow.
The release of Bout was celebrated in Russia as a triumph for the Kremlin, Al Jazeera reported.
LDPR founder and long-time head Vladimir Zhirinovsky had notoriety as a political showman before his death in April, and the party has a record of bringing controversial people into Russian politics.
Former KGB operative Andrey Lugovoy, who was sought in Britain for the killing of ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, was elected to parliament for the LDPR in 2007.
The state-run Russia Today network published Bout's first interview after his release, in which he claimed that the West has been trying to "destroy" and break Russia ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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