Video released by Russian state media shows a first-hand view of WNBA star Brittney Griner being swapped for notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout on the tarmac of an airport in the United Arab Emirates.
The “Merchant of Death” can be seen embracing his Russian countrymen after being freed from federal custody hours earlier.
The footage, apparently shot from a waiting Russian aircraft, shows Bout and another man walking away from an unmarked passenger jet, towards a group of people that includes Griner and three men in suits.
One of the men with Griner reaches out to embrace Gout, and a second shakes his hands. The Russian video blurs the faces of both men, ostensibly agents of the Russian state.
The man who was initially with Bout joins Griner and along with the fourth man — ostensibly Americans — they walk off with Griner to speak with a man in a white kandura, the traditional robe worn by Emirati men.
The camera follows Bout, who appears to be talking animatedly with the blurred men, and the video then cuts to Bout boarding another private jet, where a man in a lab coat checks his blood pressure.
Later in the video, he can be seen on a cell phone, reportedly speaking with his mother.
“They took me right out of the cell, with all my things,” Bout says, according to Russian outlet RIA. “Then seven hours to Manchester and seven hours from Manchester.”
Bout, an outlaw Russian arms dealer known as “The Merchant of Death,” had been in US custody since 2008, when the Drug Enforcement Administration captured him in Thailand.
Bout was convicted in 2011 of conspiring to kill Americans, among other charges, by supplying weapons to the FARC rebel group in Colombia. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Rumors swirled since July that the Biden administration was in talks with the Kremlin to free Griner and another American, Paul Whelan, in return for Bout’s release.
Whelan, a former US Marine, is serving a 16-year-sentence after being accused by Moscow of espionage in 2018. The White House has insisted both Whelan and Griner were wrongfully detained by Russia.
Griner was detained by Russian authorities in February after cannabis was found in her luggage while entering the country — an incident the White House has said was politically motivated ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Griner pleaded guilty to drug possession charges in July. She was sentenced to nine years in a forced labor camp in Mordovia.
Whelan was not included in the deal struck between the White House and the Kremlin.
Biden said Thursday the swap “was not a choice of which American to bring home.”
“We’ve not forgotten about Paul Whelan. We will keep negotiating in good faith for Paul’s release,” he added.
