MOSCOW, December 8./TASS/. Russian national Viktor Bout, who was recently released from US custody, said that he is okay in a telephone conversation with his family while the plane carrying him home made a stopover for refueling. The footage of the conversation was shown by Rossiya-24 TV channel late on Thursday.

"Don’t worry, everything is okay, I love you very much," he told his mother Raisa Bout.

Russian State Duma legislator Maria Butina wrote on her Telegram channel that Bout is already in Russia and will soon be in Moscow. Air service sources have told TASS that the plane carrying Viktor Bout landed in Makhachkala, Dagestan, for refueling.

Earlier on Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported that Russian citizen Viktor Bout was returning to Russia as a result of an agreement with the US to exchange him for American basketball player Brittney Griner.

Brittney Griner, a US basketball star, was arrested in Russia in February 2022 on charges of attempting to smuggle drugs into the country. She flew to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport from New York, where upon arrival, two cartridges with cannabis oil were found in her luggage during baggage inspection. According to an expert review, the substance was cannabis oil, which qualifies as a narcotic substance. The court sentenced her to nine years in a penal colony.

As a member of the United States national women’s team, Griner won gold medals at the 2014 and 2018 World Championships, as well as at the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games. Before her arrest, she played for Russia’s Yekaterinburg professional basketball club.

Viktor Bout was detained in Thailand’s capital of Bangkok in 2008 under a warrant issued by a local court at the behest of the US. He was charged with illegally supplying weapons to a rebel group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the US. Bout was extradited to the United States two years later. In April 2012, he was sentenced to 25 years in jail and slapped with a $15-million fine.