Viktor Bout will take part in the elections to the Yaroslavl Regional Duma – Kommersant

Viktor Bout will take part in the elections to the Yaroslavl Regional Duma - Kommersant

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Viktor Bout, who returned to Russia from an American prison, plans to participate in the elections to the Yaroslavl Regional Duma, reports a local portal. “Yarnovity” citing a government source. According to him, Mr. Bout can head one of the territorial groups. Sources also announced the likelihood of his participation in the elections to the Yaroslavl Regional Duma Vedomosti.

Yesterday, April 24, Viktor Bout visited Yaroslavl, where he held talks with Vice Governor for Domestic Policy Andrei Kolyadin and the leadership of the regional branch of the Liberal Democratic Party. In addition, he met with students of YarSU named after. P. G. Demidov and the working team of the Yaroslavl shipbuilding plant.

A spokesman for the LDPR press service told Vedomosti that he could not yet comment on Mr. Bout’s plans. Party spokesman Alexander Dupin said that the businessman asked to hold all meetings in Yaroslavl without the media.

Viktor Bout owned the Air Cess Liberia airline, and in the late 1990s the United States initiated an investigation into his activities. In 2000, he was mentioned in the report of the UN Security Council in connection with the supply of weapons and ammunition to Afghanistan, the countries of the former Yugoslavia and a number of African states in circumvention of sanctions. Reports from the UN Security Council, Amnesty International and the State Department in 2000, 2005 and 2006 called him the largest arms supplier to Africa.

In 2008, Mr. Bout was arrested in Thailand at the request of the United States. In 2012, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for illegal arms dealing, supporting terrorism, and conspiracy to kill American citizens. In December 2022, the Russian exchanged American basketball player Brittney Griner, sentenced in the Russian Federation to nine years in prison. In the same month Viktor Bout entered in the LDPR.

Read more about the exchange – in the material “Kommersant” “Both or not Booth, do something”.

Laura Keffer

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