Viktor Bout Is Trying to Sell Weapons to the Houthis, Western Officials Say

The Russian arms dealer Viktor A. Bout is trying to broker a deal with Houthi militants in Yemen, according to Western officials.

The negotiations between Mr. Bout and the Iran-backed group have been in progress for some time, but no deal has been completed and no arms have been transferred, the officials said.

Nicknamed the “Merchant of Death” by U.S. officials, Mr. Bout was released by the Biden administration in December 2022 after serving less than half of his 25-year sentence in U.S. federal prison in connection to his work as an arms trader. The United States swapped him in the prisoner exchange that freed the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner from a Russian prison, where she had been held for 10 months after being arrested at a Moscow airport with 0.7 grams of cannabis oil.

Freeing Mr. Bout was long a priority for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Western intelligence agencies do not have direct knowledge that the Russian leader told Mr. Bout to re-enter the arms trade, but officials said Mr. Bout would not have restarted his work without the implicit approval of the Kremlin. Had an arms deal with the Houthis been against Russia’s interests, they said, the Kremlin would have reined him in.

The Russians have been pursuing several weapons agreements with the Houthis, and Mr. Bout’s negotiations are not the only ones underway. Mr. Bout’s initial deal, reported earlier in The Wall Street Journal, was a potential agreement to transfer small arms to the Houthis. Western officials believe that other Russian officials and arms dealers are involved in potential agreements to send missiles to the Houthis from Russia.

More advanced and precise weaponry in the hands of the Houthis would allow them to target Israel more effectively and strike at ships in the Red Sea.