MOSCOW, January 11. /TASS/. Viktor Bout, who in December returned to Russia from US captivity, said he had never been involved in the arms business, ridiculing the fictional image of a "gun baron" attributed to him by Americans.

"I have never been in the arms business, this is all the result of propaganda. <...> I worked with Libya. We supplied, serviced and worked specifically with aircraft equipment. In Africa, we worked in many countries. I worked for a very long time in Angola. What the Americans tried to make me out to be, an arms baron, is absolute fiction, and is detached from reality," he said on Wednesday in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station.

At the same time, Bout noted that he would be happy to continue to be involved in transportation and aviation. "And to the transport, aviation business, I would love to get back to it, I just need time to see if there will be an opportunity, if it will be possible to enter the same river twice," he added.

On December 8, Viktor Bout returned to Russia as a result of an agreement with the US to exchange him for American basketball player Brittney Griner, found guilty in Russia of drug smuggling.

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.