”Dödens köpman” tillbaka – säljer vapen till huthierna

Viktor Anatolyevich Bout (; ‹See Tfd›Russian: Ви́ктор Анато́льевич Бут; born 13 January 1967) is a Russian arms dealer and politician. A weapons manufacturer and former Soviet military translator, he used his multiple companies to smuggle arms from Eastern Europe to Africa and the Middle East during the 1990s and early 2000s. Bout gained the nicknames the "Merchant of Death" and "Sanctions Buster" after British minister Peter Hain read a report to the United Nations in 2003 on Bout's wide-reaching operations, extensive clientele, and willingness to bypass embargoes. In a US sting operation Bout was arrested in 2008 in Thailand on terrorism charges by the Royal Thai Police in cooperation with American authorities and Interpol. The United States Ambassador to Thailand Eric G. John requested his extradition, which was mandated by the Supreme Court of Thailand in 2010. Bout was accused of intending to sell arms to a United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informer pretending to represent the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for use against American forces in Colombia, but Bout denied the charges and predicted an acquittal. In 2011 Bout was convicted by a jury at a federal court in Manhattan, of conspiracy to kill American citizens and officials, delivery of anti-aircraft missiles, and providing aid to a terrorist organization; he was sentenced to the minimum 25 years' imprisonment. From 2012 until 2022, Bout was held at the United States Penitentiary, Marion. In 2022, he was released in a prisoner exchange for American basketball player Brittney Griner, who had been sentenced, in August 2022, to 9 years of imprisonment for bringing 0.7g of cannabis oil into Russia. Bout had served 10 years in prison before his release in December 2022. After returning to Russia, Bout joined the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia in 2022 and won a seat in the Legislative Assembly of Ulyanovsk Oblast as a member of the LDPR on 2 July 2023.

The Houthi movement (; Arabic: الحوثيون, romanized: al-Ḥūthiyūn [al.ħuː.θi.juːn]), officially known as Ansar Allah, is a Shia Islamist political and military organization that emerged from Yemen in the 1990s. It is predominantly made up of Zaidi Shias, with their namesake leadership being drawn largely from the Houthi tribe. Under the leadership of Zaidi religious leader Hussein al-Houthi, the Houthis emerged as an opposition movement to Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh, whom they accused of corruption and being backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States. In 2003, influenced by the Lebanese Shia political and military organization Hezbollah, the Houthis adopted their official slogan against the United States, Israel, and the Jews. Al-Houthi resisted Saleh's order for his arrest, and was afterwards killed by the Yemeni military in Saada in 2004, sparking the Houthi insurgency. Since then, the movement has been mostly led by his brother Abdul-Malik al-Houthi. The organization took part in the Yemeni Revolution of 2011 by participating in street protests and coordinating with other Yemeni opposition groups. They joined Yemen's National Dialogue Conference but later rejected the 2011 reconciliation deal. In late 2014, the Houthis repaired their relationship with Saleh, and with his help they took control of the capital city. The takeover prompted a Saudi-led military intervention to restore the internationally recognized government, leading to an ongoing civil war which included missile and drone attacks against Saudi Arabia and its ally United Arab Emirates. Following the outbreak of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, the Houthis began to fire missiles at Israel and to attack ships off Yemen's coast in the Red Sea, which they say is in solidarity with the Palestinians and aiming to facilitate entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. The Houthi movement attracts followers in Yemen by portraying themselves as fighting for economic development and the end of the political marginalization of Zaidi Shias, as well as by promoting regional political–religious issues in its media. The Houthis have a complex relationship with Yemen's Sunnis; the movement has discriminated against Sunnis but has also allied with and recruited them. The Houthis aim to govern all of Yemen and support external movements against the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. Because of the Houthis' ideological background, the conflict in Yemen is widely seen as a front of the Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy war.