Bout served in the Soviet Armed Forces, but there is no definite information on his military career except that he graduated from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages. His training allowed Bout to become a polyglot and master six languages: Russian, Portuguese, English, French, Arabic and Persian. He's 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. He is thought to have been discharged from the Soviet Army in 1991 with the rank of lieutenant colonel to start an air freight business, but 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 MPLA in the Angolan Civil War, stating that he was only in Angola for a few weeks.