'Merchant of death' arms dealer released back to Russia by US in basketball star swap

A Russian arms dealer known as the "Merchant of Death" who plotted to sell weapons that would kill Americans was freed by the US today in exchange for a female basketball player.

Viktor Bout, 55, who was one of the world's "most prolific" weapons sellers when he was arrested in 2008, was let loose in exchange for WNBA star Brtittney Griner, who was being held in Russia on drugs charges.

The swap, at a time of heightened tensions over Ukraine, achieved a top goal for President Joe Biden, but carried a heavy price.

Biden's authorisation to release a Russian felon once nicknamed "the Merchant of Death" underscored the escalating pressure that his administration faced to get Griner home, particularly after the recent resolution of her criminal case and her subsequent transfer to a penal colony.

The swap was confirmed by U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the negotiations who were not authorised to publicly discuss the deal before a White House announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The deal, the second such exchange in eight months with Russia, procured the release of the most prominent American detained abroad.

The US had also hoped to arrange the release of another American jailed for almost four years.

Griner is a two-time Olympic gold medalist whose months-long imprisonment on drug charges brought unprecedented attention to the population of wrongful detainees.

Biden spoke with Griner on the phone Thursday while her wife, Cherelle, was in the Oval Office. The president was to address reporters later in the morning.

Russian and US officials had conveyed cautious optimism in recent weeks after months of strained negotiations, with Biden saying in November that he was hopeful that Russia would engage in a deal now that the midterm elections were completed.

A top Russian official said last week that a deal was possible before year's end.

Even so, the fact that the deal was a one-for-one swap was a surprise given that US officials had for months expressed their their determination to bring home both Griner and Paul Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed in Russia since December 2018 on espionage charges that his family and the US government has said are baseless.

In releasing Bout, the US freed a a former Soviet Army lieutenant colonel whom the Justice Department once described as one of the world's most prolific arms dealers.

Bout, whose exploits inspired a Hollywood movie, was serving a 25-year sentence on charges that he conspired to sell tens of millions of dollars in weapons that U.S officials said were to be used against Americans.

The Biden administration was ultimately willing to exchange Bout if it meant Griner's freedom.

The detention of one of the greatest players in WNBA history contributed to a swirl of unprecedented public attention for an individual detainee case - not to mention intense pressure on the White House.

Griner's arrest in February made her the most high-profile American jailed abroad.

Her status as an openly gay Black woman, locked up in a country where authorities have been hostile to the LBGTQ community, infused racial, gender and social dynamics into her legal saga and made each development a matter of international importance.

Her case not only brought unprecedented publicity to the dozens of Americans wrongfully detained by foreign governments, but it also emerged as a major inflection point in U.S.-Russia diplomacy at a time of deteriorating relations prompted by Moscow's war against Ukraine.

The exchange was carried out despite deteriorating relations between the powers.

But the imprisonment of Americans produced a rare diplomatic opening, yielding the highest-level known contact between Washington and Moscow - a phone call between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov - in more than five months.

In an extraordinary move during otherwise secret negotiations, Blinken revealed publicly in July that the US had made a "substantial proposal" to Russia for Griner and Whelan.

Though he did not specify the terms, people familiar with it said the US had offered Bout.

Such a public overture drew a chiding rebuke from the Russians, who said they preferred to resolve such cases in private, and carried the risk of weakening the US government's negotiating hand for this and future deals by making the administration appear too desperate.

But the announcement was also meant to communicate to the public that Biden was doing what he could and to ensure pressure on the Russians.

Besides the efforts of US officials, the release also followed months of backchannel negotiations involving Bill Richardson, the former US ambassador to the United Nations and a frequent emissary in hostage talks, and his top deputy Mickey Bergman.

The men had made multiple trips abroad in the last year to discuss swap scenarios with Russian contacts.

Griner was arrested at the Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport in February when customs officials said they found vape canisters with cannabis oil in her luggage.