On the surface, Brittney Griner and Viktor Bout are accused of ludicrously different crimes.
Bout’s outsized importance to Russia has always been the bigger puzzle.
I have seen videos of Bout in the Congo and across Africa, where he was pretty close to the conflicts there.
There were suggestions too that he had served alongside senior Russians who are now close to President Vladimir Putin.
This is a man who many ordinary Russians may have heard of, and he certainly is of mythological importance to the Russian elite.