‘The Merchant Of Death’ For Griner And Whelan: Why The Russian Prisoner Swap Is A Risky Deal

In seeking the release of two Americans convicted of crimes in Russia, U.S. officials confirmed this week they’ve proposed a prisoner exchange for Viktor Bout, a notorious arms dealer nicknamed ‘The Merchant of Death.’

Why This Is A Bad Deal

If current negotiations succeed, the U.S. will free a convicted arms smuggler who operated on an international scale for close to two decades in exchange for Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, both of whom have arguably exemplified poor behavior on the world stage.

Griner, 31, is the pro basketball star who pleaded guilty to having hashish oil in her suitcase at a Moscow airport in February. Whelan, 52, a former Marine who traveled to Russia for years, was arrested in 2018 and convicted on espionage charges in a secret trial.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated the two Americans have been “wrongfully detained and must be allowed to come home.” Blinken said he’s presented a plan to Russia for the return of two Americans, though he did not mention Bout by name.

Blinken plans to speak with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, though it’s not clear when that might be. The two have not spoken since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, so this prisoner swap may be more about the two countries proving they ‘can still do business’ on some level amid the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, where the Americans are the leading arms supplier to the Ukrainians. 

Either way, the uneven nature of this exchange sets a bad precedent for America. 

Enter Viktor Bout

Viktor Bout is a 55-year-old former Russian military officer who was the world’s most notorious arms dealer.

Bout was in his mid-20s when the Soviet Union fractured in 1991, leaving vast quantities of Soviet military weapons throughout 15-budding post-Soviet nations with little to no oversight. As these countries largely could not afford to fund their militaries or pay their security apparatus, it made it easy for Bout to bribe officials to pilfer the myriad of Soviet-era weapons in their arsenals.

Trained by the Soviet military as a linguist, Bout acquired Soviet military transport planes and loaded them up with weapons to sell over the world; in places like Afghanistan, Angola, Congo, Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen and more. Bout sold weapons to governments and rebels, sometimes to both sides in the same conflict.

He earned the nickname “The Merchant of Death,” which became the title of his biography. Despite facing international sanctions and threats of arrest, Bout managed to stay a step ahead of law enforcement until 2008, when he was captured in a sting operation in Thailand, organized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. 

The Thais extradited Bout to the U.S. two years later, where he was charged with conspiring to kill Americans on behalf of the FARC guerrillas in Colombia, and received a 25 year sentence in 2011.

Prisoner Swaps

This latest proposal brings no indictment to the practice of “prisoner swaps”. During the Cold War, and in places like present-day Israel, prisoner swaps have been a vital tool in bringing home soldiers, intelligence assets, and political prisoners for nearly a century. 

However, they are normally subject to careful risk assessment and negotiation with legislators, the intelligence community, and law enforcement to assure that these trades are equivalent in value – and not imposing a risk on society at large. 

Trading For Griner

While many on the left argue that opposition to Griner’s release is based in racism and her previous protests against the national anthem, a look into Griner’s work in Russia speaks more to her character and why her trade for Bout may be a bitter pill to swallow. 

Social media circulates memes that keep Griner’s 2020 comments at the forefront of the argument to bring her back from Russia, when Griner told the sports media, “I honestly feel we should not play the national anthem during our season.” In that interview, Griner continued “I’m going to protest regardless. I’m not going to be out there for the national anthem,” she said. “If the league continues to want to play it, that’s fine. It will be all season long, I’ll not be out there. I feel like more are going to probably do the same thing. I can only speak for myself.”

Thus, many conservative Americans feel that, if Griner is unhappy with her nation of birth, this nullifies her argument that our government should go out of their way to bring her home after she plead guilty to violating Russian law. 

While many readers may see this as a valid argument – what’s noteworthy is the hypocrisy surrounding the fact that Griner worked in Russia in the first place.  The two-time Olympic gold medalist was headed to Russia for her second job.

“They love it there,” Phoenix Mercury President Vince Kozar said in an interview with Stars and Stripes magazine “It’s easy in hindsight to say, ‘That’s a scary place for an American.’ But that’s never

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