Viktor Bout’s Release Is Hailed in Russia as a Kremlin Victory

In the West, he is known as a convicted illicit arms trafficker, “the merchant of death” who helped fuel wars around the world. But in Russia, Viktor Bout was welcomed home this week as something of a hero, or at least an innocent victim of American politics.

The Russian government, its allies and the relentlessly pro-Kremlin media hailed the release of Mr. Bout, 55, by the United States, in exchange for the American basketball star Brittney Griner, and claimed that it meant that President Vladimir V. Putin had bested President...