Analyzing Evil: The Illegal Arms Trade, Viktor Bout, and Yuri Orlov From Lord of War

hello everyone and welcome to the 55th episode of analyzing evil featuring yuri orlov from lord of war as well as his real world inspiration victor boot known across the world as the merchant of death victor boot before his incarceration was considered a giant in the illegal arms trade a man who created a commercial empire in the wake of the collapse of the soviet union transforming himself into one of the most elusive yet well-known purveyors of weaponry in the world his film counterpart performs much the same role but there are a few differences between them that make them fairly distinct characters who happen to share the same profession obviously we'll be looking at lord of war for information about yuri but for information about victor i'll be referring to the 2014 film made about his life the notorious mr boot as well as a number of different articles which i'll provide links to in the description while this video is about these men as you can see from the title we're going to be engaging in a discussion about a specific concept as well the illegal arms trade which will be a first for the channel and the reason for that is because there's a fair amount of controversy surrounding the morality of the illegal arms trade and whether or not the people involved in it are simply taking advantage of an enduring system and inevitability that will exist regardless of their actions thus providing this concept with a certain degree of moral ambiguity so in this video we're going to explore the lives of both victor and yuri filling you in on who they are how they got involved in their business and the actions they took in service to that business after which we'll cover every argument there is to be made about where their actions land on the spectrum of morality determining at the same time whether or not you could consider these men to be evil now without further ado let's begin by discussing the life of victor boot victor boot an ethnic ukrainian was born in 1967 in dushan bay the capital of what was then the tajik soviet socialist republic modern-day tajikistan we don't know too much about victor's early life his father was a mechanic his mother a bookkeeper and his brother described him as being full of ideas and typically at the center of attention indicating that he had an outgoing and charismatic personality in his youth we do know that when victor was younger he had an interest in languages and he was a member of his school's esperanto club and this interest in linguistics as a youth translated into further study into the subject in his adulthood as victor would go on to graduate from the military institute of foreign linguistics while serving his time in the soviet armed forces there are a multitude of other sources that state he was a major in the soviet air force or that he was trained as a kgb agent but regardless of what branch he served in i'm sure he gained knowledge and experience during his time in the service knowledge that would assist him in his endeavors with aircraft and military weaponry though it has been said that victor wasn't too familiar with guns when he first started in the illegal arms trade not only did he gain information and experience but victor had to get his supply from somewhere and i'm sure having more than a few contacts in the soviet armed forces gave him a steady supply of product in the late 80s victor was stationed in mozambique where he would meet a la protasiva and after returning to russia they would marry in 1991 a marriage that was born amidst the collapse of the soviet union from here victor would start his own import company bringing new and exciting products from abroad to the former soviet states and making a small fortune for his new family however doing business during this time in moscow was treacherous as the russian mafia and corrupt government officials ran the city so victor decided to move his operation to belgium where he would lease old soviet cargo planes and then sublease them for three times the price of the original lease after doing business in belgium for some time the situation grew untenable and so victor decided to move to sharjah in the uae here victor started an airline cargo empire sending 200 tons of product to russia every month and establishing himself as a highly wealthy man now one of victor's first customers when he was in belgium was the angolan government and after some time victor came to the realization that africa was a playground for the aspiring cargo entrepreneur anything and everything was needed all over africa food clothes appliances cookware linens any commodity you can imagine i'm sure victor was shipping to a variety of countries and this move grew victor's wealth exponentially now this is how victor got his start and we'll continue talking about his business endeavors in just a moment but first let's talk about who victor was from the testimony of others and the extensive amount of home movies victor made it would seem that victor was a rather pleasant fellow he had a jovial demeanor more often than not and the charisma he showed in his youth was present in his adulthood as he still often found himself at the center of attention he was a curious man one who tried to film nearly every moment in his life a life that had come in contact with all manner of wondrous and new things during his transition into an international businessman he was a good friend a loving husband and a kind father and by all accounts victor was overall a good person however there was a flaw in his good nature his greed if it hadn't been made clear already victor was an opportunist and a savvy businessman at that one who sees the potential for business everywhere he goes a man who's always looking for the next deal it stands to reason then that it may have been inevitable that victor would fall into the illegal arms trade after all he was in the right place at the right time with the right connections and an ambitious man like victor wouldn't be the type of person to turn any lucrative deal down and so victor became involved in shipping weapons to these countries he had been doing innocent business in however victor wasn't shipping these weapons to be sold in stores or markets like his other goods no these weapons were bound for conflict zones and more specifically the organizations and the people leading them who were committing terrible atrocities in these conflict zones like charles taylor the brutal dictator of liberia between 1997 and 2001 rebels in somalia rwanda and sierra leone jean-pierre bimba leader of the rebel group movement for the liberation of the congo and yao ri musaveni long-time dictator of uganda those are the only organizations or despots that victor sold to and a lot of victor's records are incomplete so we'll never truly know the extent of his illicit dealings an interesting fact to consider though is that victor never had any particular loyalty to anyone he sold to so if the opportunity presented itself when he finished selling guns to rebels he would turn around and sell guns to the government they were fighting against essentially creating a sort of self-sustaining business model with these conflicts guns weren't the only thing victor supplied to these people either as victor also provided training for some of these groups having the members of his company who had served in the soviet armed forces trained them and he even supplied logistics support and engaged in smuggling operations on their behalf when necessary however victor also engaged in more legitimate operations and at varying points in his company's history he worked with the united states to bring supplies into iraq or with the french to ferry troops into dangerous areas in rwanda but this is essentially what victor did that could be considered wrong during his tenure as the so-called merchant of death and for now we'll refrain from passing judgment on his actions as again we'll be discussing the morality of his and yuri's actions when we get to the third part of this video even so before we move on to yuri we should at least discuss why victor would even involve himself in this business when he had such a profitable operation already aside from the obvious promise of wealth and to understand that you have to put yourself in victor shoes picture this you're a young man in your 20s who has just witnessed the transformation of one of the world's foremost powers from a repressive communist state one where your goods and resources were limited to what was produced in your country to a capitalist free market society where everything had now become a free-for-all the world you had lived in for your entire life was gone and in its place came a wonderland of opportunity you see a new world before you filled with excitement an adventure a world you can't wait to see and document along the way so in pursuit of your wanderlust you get involved in a new business and not only that but you start making the right decisions and with those decisions comes more wealth than you've ever seen before you've become rich but the opportunity for even more wealth is staring at you everywhere you go and with the right connections you begin selling arms to warlords rebels and despots because after all if you don't someone else surely will so what's the harm well it turns out that there's quite a bit of harm to be done and it's this mindset and moral reasoning that ended up putting victor in the crosshairs of multiple world governments which led to a sting operation that would end in his eventual incarceration interestingly enough it would seem that part of the reason that victor was able to engage in this business as well was due to the fact that he showed a fair bit of naivete about what his products did to other people and it could be said that victor had an almost childlike innocence that allowed him to ignore the horrible things that happened when he sold firearms to these terrible people that's who victor boot was how he got his start and what he did over the course of his tenure as a shipping magnate and now that we've covered him let's move on to his fictional counterpart yuri orlov and see what differences there are between the two yuri was born in odessa ukraine and moved to brighton beach in new york city with his parents and younger brother when he was still a child in the early 70s which is already a fairly big difference between victor and yuri yuri got his start in the illegal arms trade much earlier than victor did as well picking up the trade in 1982 after witnessing a shooting in brighton beach however they seem to be quite similar in their personalities at least to a certain extent yuri shows himself to be an intelligent amiable and humorous person with a smart wit and the heart of a prankster unlike victor yuri spent no time serving in the army but he does show that he has an interest in and knack for languages like victor and rather than appearing to us as a man taking new opportunities in the wake of the collapse of his country yuri is the kind of man who grew up living in a less than desirable area one who wanted more out of life than to work and die propping up his family's restaurant this is where yuri differs considerably from victor in that victor's business started off more or less legitimate and he eventually branched out into selling arms but yuri engaged solely in selling illegal firearms and never even considered pursuing any kind of business in the legitimate world now the thing about victor is we do have some knowledge of what he did but there's a lot of holes missing in his story and we don't know what the full extent of his dealings were with his clients with yuri as far as we know we're given the full story and if we were to compare yuri's actions to every action we can speculate on that victor took it appears that yuri was far more involved in the business than victor was considering this was his only product whereas victor showed quite a bit of naivete yuri is not only fully aware of the deadly consequences his products bring to people he doesn't care as we see after he makes his first international sale and children are killed using the weapons he just sold and he even manages to make a joke about his weapons killing his own countrymen with simeon when he's having dinner with him he does show a bit of hesitancy at the amount of death that surrounds him at certain points in the film like when andre shoots a young man who's flirting with one of his women and he becomes distraught while in a drug-induced stupor following simeon's death but this does little in the way of altering yuri's decision to be involved in this business yuri takes the family man route same as victor but he also indulges in drugs and adultery and while we don't know whether or not victor was entirely faithful to his wife or if he used drugs yuri is shown to embrace a much more lavish and indulgent lifestyle than his real world counterpart lying is something that comes naturally to yuri as well and while the extent of allah's knowledge of victor's dealings is unknown we can assume that he lied to her in some respects and yuri is the same way showing us near the end of the film that he has absolutely no issues lying to the people closest to him as we can see when he lies to his wife about where he's headed off to on a business trip after he swore to her that he was done selling guns and of course as far as we know victor never had a hand in getting anybody close to him killed which is perhaps the most sobering moment for yuri in the film that in the end doesn't even manage to steer him away from his business so that's essentially who victor boot and yuri orlov are and what they did but now we need to ask ourselves are all the things that they did evil to determine that let's examine the arguments for why they wouldn't be considered evil and see if we can find any holes in those arguments the first and most often quoted argument for involvement in this business is the vacuum present within it yuri and victor are both fond of arguing that if they hadn't have sold weapons to these despots and mass murderers then someone else would have they aren't creating the need for these weapons they're simply filling the already existing demand for them this is true but this argument contains more nuance to it than it appears to when looking at it at face value as there are a number of things to consider here for example these organizations are looking to buy guns from anyone and anywhere but who's to say that every order that yuri and victor fulfilled would have been filled by someone else had they not supplied these guns yes it's highly likely that they would have but it's possible that they wouldn't have it's unrealistic to assume as yuri postulates in lord of war that you can stop every massacre or any of them for that matter and that's also likely the case but perhaps andre baptist's army wouldn't have received as many guns as they would have if yuri had not supplied them and out of the many massacres that occurred during his reign maybe a few lives could have been saved out of the thousands massacred which isn't a solution to the entire problem but a life saved is a life saved and you could apply this reasoning to any deal yuri or victor brokered now the other thing about this argument is that whenever it's presented the best counter to this assertion is yes somebody is going to sell guns to these people but why does it have to be you you can picture yourself in a number of different scenarios here to support this counter there are positions in governments the world over where men and women engage in the torture persecution or murder of innocent people the best example of this being the secret police organizations established by brutal dictators someone inevitably has to fill those positions but does it have to be you gangs are always looking for new members but do you have to be one of them radical terrorist organizations are always recruiting new members as well but do you have to be one of the few who sign up no like many things in life it's a choice and this line of thought brings me to my next point just because someone will in all likelihood fill these positions or provide murderous services to despots like victor and yuri have does that mean we just have to accept them as an inevitability and refrain from condemning these actions as evil no i think not because there is no man-made construct in this world that's an inevitability now i'm not what you would call an idealist but the way i see it if we aren't wiped out by some cataclysmic natural disaster either humanity will persevere long enough to the point where society will become so enmeshed that the problems that arise from our differences and social stations will become near non-existent or we'll destroy each other before then i'm no seer i don't know what the future holds and with the latter example i'm not talking about 50 years from now or even a hundred it could be thousands of years before humans are finally able to put aside their differences and truly come together for the betterment of our species but if we survive long enough i believe the majority of the problems of our day will cease to exist just as many of the issues we faced in the past have slowly been dealt with over time sometimes we take a few steps back rather than moving forward after all humans are humans and we aren't perfect but as long as time moves forward and we exist i believe the evils of the world will surely lessen with that in mind i believe we can condemn anyone who provides weaponry training or supplies to any organization that seeks to sow misery in the name of their own cause it's going to happen but we can't just throw our hands up and say oh well that's life we recognize this behavior condemn it and hope that we can take steps to correct it and prevent it from happening in the future and that brings me to the next argument in defense of people who engage in this business which is the fact that the greatest dealers of illegal arms in this world are legitimate governments and quite often the governments in this world who claim to be the defenders of peace freedom and democracy so in the face of these gargantuan dealers of death how can you point your finger at victor boot or yuri orlov and say that they're the bad guy when they've often found themselves working for these governments because your actions are still your actions no matter if there's a bigger fish than you for example if someone murdered one person and their argument for why they weren't such a bad person was to point at another person who had murdered 10 people as a comparison or would you condemn them as still being a murderer no matter the amount of people they had killed of course you would and the same goes for people like victor or yuri yes there are much bigger forces at work in this bloody business but just because their crimes are greater and done under the guise of legality doesn't mean that victor and yuri's actions are any less reprehensible nor are the actions of these governments and the last argument we have in defense of these actions is in fact legality as brian johnson thomas points out in the notorious mr boot some of what victor did and by extension yuri wasn't exactly illegal however he does point out as well that it's amoral if not illegal so you could very well make the argument that what these men did wasn't illegal but then again what does that matter if the products they just sold were used to massacre innocent people is this another reason for us to throw up our hands in defeat i would think and hope not and that's essentially the arguments that can be made as to why these men might be innocent of any crimes we can pin on them if you have another let me know down below but after examining these arguments can we honestly say that any of them are valid no they're not and when you look at victor and yuri's actions you find men who are either too naive to see or too apathetic to care about what their actions were doing to other people and as a direct result of their willingness to sell arms to some of the world's most vicious killers they indirectly caused the deaths of thousands of innocent people all for the sake of lining their own pockets and now that we've taken a look at the morality of the illegal arms trade as a whole who exactly were victor boot and yuri orlov victor was an opportunistic and ambitious man taking advantage of newly formed markets in the wake of the collapse of one of the world's superpowers entering into legitimate transport of cargo all across the world he was an amiable jovial and charismatic man one who often found himself at the center of attention and he seemed to have been a loving husband family man and a generally kind person yuri was much the same man though instead of seeing opportunity in newly formed capitalistic markets yuri saw wealth in the form of an illicit need that he knew needed to be filled and though his personality resembled victors in many ways he was more hedonistic and indulgent than his real world counterpart and though i'm sure victor quite enjoyed the wealth he accumulated yuri definitely abused it more than he did again this is who these men are but now we have to ask ourselves are they evil men well when you take into consideration the information we gathered throughout this video we can without a doubt say that their actions certainly were evil and they caused great harm to many others while they enjoyed the wealth they built off of their blood but their reasons for doing what they did weren't specifically to cause this misery the arguments i laid out earlier that victor and yuri are fond of using to defend themselves are riddled with faults and though these men knew what they were doing they believed these arguments and through naivete or indifference they ignored the ramifications of their trade and justified their own actions as being an inevitability we can't say that victor or yuri were engaging in these transactions and then returning to their homes and fantasizing about all the death that would result from their actions and i don't believe either of them specifically sought to harm others they just wanted to get rich by whatever means were available to them so in that respect you could say that they are indeed evil as their exceptionally greedy men who are either ignorant of or willing to ignore the problems they cause due to the dollar signs blinding their vision however you could also argue that they were actually decent people with horribly amoral values in some areas who took evil actions but they themselves aren't inherently evil it's a tricky one but if we factor in remorse the answer becomes a bit clearer to this day victor boot professes his innocence and whether he truly believes he's innocent or he's simply claiming he is to prevent further legal action against him is unknown but as far as we know victor hasn't acknowledged the harm he's caused others and he doesn't feel remorseful for his actions which tips the scales towards him being an evil man but again though he certainly knew what he was doing it still wasn't his intent to cause harm only to line his own pockets now yuri's story is slightly different for starters we know he witnessed an atrocity during his first deal and chose to continue in the business anyway which already compromises his moral standing then after dealing with agent jack valentine and his brush with incarceration yuri returns to his business rather than abandoning it and this is after witnessing the murders committed by andre baptiste the murder of his brother and gaining the knowledge of the massacre that occurred through the use of his weapons now the reason that yuri returns to his work is because he has nothing left outside of it his wife left him his brother is dead and his family has disowned him so he chooses to return to the only thing he knows he's always known what his products do but considering he's now a witness and victim to even more of the horror his products have wrought it stands to reason that yuri definitely leans more towards being an evil man than victor regardless of whether or not you consider them to be evil the fact remains that their actions certainly were in the end victor boot and yuri orlov aren't entirely to blame for what occurred with their products but they contributed to the problem and due to their actions and unknown and immense amount of people lost their lives or their limbs due to their involvement with the organizations they dealt with and even if we're unable to attach the label of evil to them we can without a doubt assert that everything they did and this terrible business is evil thank you all for tuning in to this episode of analyzing evil and i hope you've enjoyed what are your thoughts on this business victor and yuri did i miss anything let me know down below and leave a suggestion for a villain you'd like to see featured in a future episode while you're at it if you liked this video hit that thumbs up button and make sure to subscribe if you haven't already a big thank you to all of my subscribers and to my patrons and a most vile thank you to those whose names you're seeing on screen now [Music] join the channel's discord server in reddit to interact with myself and the community and follow me on the social media platforms listed below to keep up with the channel as always thanks for watching and i'll be seeing you soon [Music] you

Channel: The Vile Eye

Views: 553,628

Keywords: Russia, Soviet, Soviet Union, Guns, Ammo, Arms, Illegal, Villain, Evil, Nicholas Cage

Id: d9UUuk2-3Eo

Length: 23min 57sec (1437 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 16 2021