Fourteen Years and Nine Months: The Revelation and Redemption of Viktor Bout

Viktor Bout greets his family upon his arrival in Moscow, December 8, 2022

Over the years I’ve met several famous individuals. I’ve met a few infamous individuals as well. But I’ve never experienced the range of emotions that I did when I was called by Peter Ermolin, the producer of the Scott Ritter Show, a weekly podcast I host in collaboration with Solovyov Live!, the online channel of the popular Russian talk show host, Vladimir Solovyov.

The Scott Ritter Show is a live interview format, and Peter and I coordinate on the guests that appear. The main idea behind the show was to create a platform that could bring Russian voices to an American audience that otherwise might remain unheard.

In this regard, the show has been a great success, and in the first 19 episodes, I have had the opportunity to interview military commanders on the frontlines in Ukraine, Russian politicians, military analysts from around the world, and Russian arms control experts. For the 20th episode, Peter said he wanted to do something “big,” and I agreed. Why not?

But when Peter called me and said the Viktor Bout had agreed to come on the show, I hesitated.

There was no doubt this would be a big interview. Viktor was a high-profile individual, an accused arms dealer who, in 2011, had been found guilty at trial of several serious charges which derived from a 2008 DEA sting operation, and who had subsequently been sentenced to serve 25 years in prison. But in early December of last year, after serving fourteen years and nine months of his sentence, Viktor Bout was released from incarceration, part of a deal between the US and Russian governments that saw Viktor exchanged for WNBA star Britnney Grimes, who had been imprisoned in Russia on drug-related charges.

This interview had “trouble” written all over it. I am not a professional interviewer. I have some experience interrogating people, namely Iraqi officials in relation to investigations I was conducting on behalf of the United Nations relating to Iraq’s obligation to be disarmed of its weapons of mass destruction programs. But this would be different. Viktor Bout wasn’t a target of any investigation that I was a part of, and the circumstances of his appearing on the Scott Ritter Show were not conducive to any journalistic game of “gotcha” that other, more professional, interviewers might be inclined to play.

That, however, was the source of much of my angst. Viktor Bout was a big deal; his story had dominated the headlines, and there was more than a little controversy surrounding the circumstances surrounding his release. Many journalists would jump at the opportunity for a “scoop” such as this, a chance to dig deeper behind the headlines for juicy tidbits of salacious information.

This, of course, was the last thing I wanted to do. But I also believed that if I failed to “dig deep,” I would then be accused of taking the “Russian side.”

I almost turned down the opportunity.

Thank goodness I didn’t.

In preparing for this interview, I put myself in Viktor’s shoes. It wasn’t hard to do—I had been incarcerated for nearly three years and knew what it was like to be released back into society under a cloud of controversy.

I also knew that the last thing I wanted to talk about upon being released was the circumstances behind my incarceration. Like Viktor, my arrest and trial had been public affairs. Like Viktor, the press only focused on the narrative that the prosecution wanted them to focus on. And like Viktor, I was too busy trying to look forward to be dragged back down into the cesspool of memories that would be conjured up by having someone dig into that experience.

I had done my due diligence before the interview began, and I had a good idea about how Viktor had already been portrayed in the western media. The last thing either of us needed was to blow this opportunity by reinventing the wheel.

I opted for a different approach. I decided that the best way to do this interview was for me to give Viktor a chance to talk, and for me and the audience to listen to what he had to say.

I’m glad I took that approach, because the words Viktor spoke continue to resonate within me to this day.

The interview is there for the public to watch and judge as they best see fit.

I think this interview did more to paint a fuller portrait of Viktor Bout, the man, than anything I had read or seen published in the mainstream media to date.

By letting Viktor speak, I allowed the anger, the pain and the indignation of the circumstances surrounding his incarceration to be drawn out into the light on Viktor’s terms.

Fourteen years and nine months.

People should reflect on that number as they listen to Viktor speak.

Fourteen years and nine months.

Scott Ritter will discuss this article and answer audience questions on Episode 41 of Ask the Inspector.

All the lost opportunities, the missed experiences…and the lonely torment that comes from being a man in his prime locked up in a cage for a crime he didn’t commit.

I do believe Viktor Bout to be innocent of the crimes he was charged with. Every single one was a conspiracy charge. Ask any lawyer who has dealt with prosecutions originating from the Southern District of New York—no one walks free from a federal conspiracy charge.

No one.

But questions of guilt or innocence are irrelevant—this case is in the past, and Viktor’s opportunities for appeal have long been exhausted. Of greater importance is the measure of the man that this interview provided. The passion and compassion of Viktor Bout is stunning, both in the barely concealed fury he has for those who prosecuted him, and the human bonds he built with jailors and incarcerated alike.

I am proud of this interview. But I do have one regret—in trying to inject some humor into an otherwise serious interview, I asked a question about the Nicholas Cage movie “Lord of War,” released in 2007 and which was loosely based on Viktor Bout’s life.

That’s when Viktor Bout schooled me on the harm that movie did to his life. Nicholas Cage is a superstar of rare talent, and to have him portray you in a film means that his interpretation of the character will define you in the eyes of anyone who had seen the film.

This was a reality the prosecution took full advantage of. Viktor Bout wasn’t just fighting the trumped-up charges the DEA had brought him up on, but the Hollywood narrative that Nicholas Cage had brought to life on film.

If someone was looking to tamper with a jury, you couldn’t have done a better job than have this movie out in the public.

Nicholas Cage, unwittingly, helped convict Viktor Bout.

Fourteen years and nine months.

And here I was, raising the issue for a laugh.

Fourteen years and nine months.

But Viktor, being the class act he is, took my question in stride, letting me know what the movie had done to him, but answering my question nonetheless with the kind of gallows humor only someone who had experienced what he had could pull off.

I’m very proud of this interview and am grateful for both Peter Emolin and Viktor Bout for making it happen.

There are no “gotcha” moments. Rather, by engaging in a simple conversation, I think this interview did more to reveal the true essence of Viktor Bout and helped propel him down the path of redemption for a life which, denied the fullness of fourteen years and nine months, is still very much worth living, and one that should be celebrated by anyone interested in humanity.

Fourteen years and nine months.

Let that sink in.