career except that he graduated from the Soviet Military Institute of Foreign Languages. Bout's training allowed him to become a polyglot and master five foreign languages: Portuguese, English, French, Arabic, and Farsi. He is reported to be fluent in Esperanto, which he learned at age 12 in the early 1980s as a member of the Dushanbe Esperanto club. Bout's personal website stated that he served in the Soviet Army as a translator, holding the rank of lieutenant. Bout is thought to have been discharged from the Soviet Army upon its dissolution in 1991 with the rank of lieutenant colonel, whereupon he started an air freight business. Other sources state he was a major in the GRU, an officer in the Soviet Air Forces, that he graduated from a Soviet military intelligence training program, or an operative of the KGB. Bout was involved with a Soviet military operation in Angola in the late 1980s assisting the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the Angolan Civil War. He has stated that he was in Angola only for a few weeks. During this time in Africa he went on to learn the Xhosa and Zulu languages. Post-Soviet era 1990s It is believed that Bout as a former member of the Soviet military was perfectly positioned to purchase surplus Soviet-era military equipment, including three Antonov An-12 aircraft, in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. According to Bout's personal website, he founded an air freight business, Air Cess, in Liberia in 1995. Air Cess is the only company connected to Bout that has ever officially recognized him as the head. He operated four Antonov An-8 planes in Angola as it was the only country to allow the An-8 to be used in civilian freight at the time. Reportedly, Bout's companies legally provided air freight services to the French government, the United Nations, and the United States, including transporting flowers, frozen chicken, UN peacekeepers, French soldiers, and African heads of state. Around this time, Bout earned the nickname of "Sanctions Buster" due to his implication in facilitating the violation of United Nations arms embargoes in the western African countries of Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Bout acknowledges traveling to Afghanistan on numerous occasions during the 1990s, but has denied dealing with al-Qaeda or the Taliban. Beginning in 1994, Bout made shipments for the pre-Taliban