Russia’s Man of War

The Extraordinary Viktor Bout

February 2025 9781911723943 360pp, 16 colour illus
Forthcoming Pre-order
Available as an eBook
EU Customers

Description

Viktor Bout was a warlord’s warlord, according to MI6, the US National Security Council and the CIA—a terrorist facilitator, and the world’s most prolific arms dealer. They tracked him everywhere, smuggling weapons from North Korea and the former Soviet Union into the world’s bloodiest conflict zones, from Liberia to Afghanistan. Intelligence services called him a secret KGB asset; the White House, the most dangerous man in the world. But Bout strenuously denied this, describing himself as a businessman.

Washington hunted Bout for more than a decade, before finally trapping him and jailing him for 25 years. Then, in December 2022, the story took an unlikely turn: President Biden pardoned Bout and sent him home to Moscow, in a prisoner exchange to rescue basketball superstar Brittney Griner, jailed in Russia on drugs charges. Soon enough, Bout cosied up with doomed Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov and the Russian governors Putin had installed in occupied Ukraine.

Has America’s extraordinary decision to swap Bout undermined Western interests? Has Putin put him back to work in his old business? Through candid interviews with US investigators and Viktor Bout himself, this book reveals the true story of the ‘Merchant of Death’.

Reviews

‘Scott-Clark examines the myths and legends surrounding Bout, probes their origins and veracity, and provides a more balanced perspective on this controversial figure. She illuminates the role of this important personality and the role he played in the evolution of some of Africa’s most intense conflicts.’ — William Reno, Professor and Chair of the Political Science Department, Northwestern University, and author of Warfare in Independent Africa

Author(s)

Cathy Scott-Clark is an award-winning investigative journalist and author, and an Emmy-winning filmmaker. She has worked with HBO, the BBC, The Sunday Times and The Guardian, and has co-authored books with Adrian Levy including The Exile: The Flight of Osama bin LadenThe Siege: The Attack on the Taj; and CIA exposé The Forever Prisoner.

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