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Russell Bentley

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the American politician from Kentucky, see Russell Bentley (politician).

Russell Bentley
Bentley in 2015
Nicknames
  • Bonner
  • Texas
  • The Donbas Cowboy
Born
Russell Bonner Bentley III

June 20, 1960
Austin, Texas, U.S.[1]
Diedc. April 8, 2024(2024-04-08) (aged 63)
Donetsk, Russian-occupied Ukraine
Cause of death
Tortured to death
AllegianceRussia
Branch
Service years
2014–2024
Conflicts

Russell Bonner Bentley III (Russian: Рассел Бентли, romanized: Rassel Bentli; June 20, 1960 – April 8, 2024), also known as Texas (Russian: Техас, pronounced "Tekhas") and the Donbas Cowboy, was an American pro-Donetsk People's Republic/pro-Russia figure in the war in Donbas and Russian invasion of Ukraine, and a self-described "information warrior".[1][2][3]

Prior to his activities in Donbas, Bentley was a marijuana activist who stood for election in the U.S. Senate, and a convicted drug trafficker who spent five years in prison and several years as a fugitive.[2][4] Bentley moved to Donbas in late 2014, becoming a pro-Russian combatant and YouTuber until his channel was deleted in early 2022, and also working for the Russian state-owned Sputnik news agency as a war correspondent.[2][5][6][7] He became a naturalized Russian citizen in 2020. In April 2024 he was kidnapped and murdered by Russian soldiers in what may have been a case of mistaken identity.[2][5][7][8]

Biography

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Early life

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Bentley was born in 1960 to a wealthy family in Austin, Texas. Until Bentley was age eight, they lived in Highland Park, Texas, which Bentley later described as "very exclusive" and "basically the Beverly Hills of Dallas."[2] As a teenager, Bentley read leftist literature and became a socialist, later describing himself as the "black sheep" of his family due to his support of leftist causes.[2] He attended high school at 16 for one semester before dropping out. He later attained his GED, and at age 20 was convinced by his father to join the U.S. Army, in which he served for three years in Louisiana and Germany. After an honorable discharge he moved to South Padre Island where he partied for years, worked as a waiter and playing guitar in "The Asbestos Band", which played a mix of covers. Bentley was known as "Bongo" at this time.[1][2]

Marijuana activism, imprisonment, fugitive

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In 1990 Bentley followed a girlfriend to move to Minneapolis, initially working as a lumberjack. He became a pro-marijuana activist, joining the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and the pro-legalization Grassroots Party. In 1990 at age 30, he ran as a U.S. Senate candidate for the Grassroots Party in Minnesota, gathering 1.65% of the vote. Bentley visited communist Cuba in the mid-1990s and became a communist himself.[1][2] He was also selling marijuana, and in February 1996 he was convicted of felony trafficking of marijuana and sentenced to five years and three months prison. Although he was due for release at the end of 1999, that August Bentley broke out of the minimum-security prison.[2] He lived as a fugitive for the next few years, mostly in Washington state. He took part in the anti-globalization protest against the World Trade Organization conference in Seattle in 1999, describing that as "the last time that I was really proud to be an American". He was recaptured in 2007 and served the remainder of his sentence in a maximum-security prison. He was released the following summer under supervision until 2012, which included a twelve-step program and a ban on intoxicants.[1][2] Bentley was so enraged at the 2011 killing of Muammar Gaddafi that he donned rock climbing gear and scaled a US Marine Corps recruiting billboard in Austin, defacing it with "FUCK NATO" in six-foot letters.[2] By 2014, Bentley was working as an arborist in Round Rock, Texas.[9]

In Donbas

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Early years

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In 2014, Bentley was following the war in Donbas. After the Ukrainian air strike on Luhansk on June 2, 2014, Bentley was moved by video of a fatally wounded young woman.[2] Despite not speaking Russian, he resolved to take arms against the Ukrainian forces. He broke up with his yoga-instructor girlfriend, left his job as an estimator for a tree-trimming company, and arrived in Donetsk on December 7, 2014. Bentley financed his activities with a GoFundMe campaign titled "Fact Finding Mission to Donbass".[6]

Arriving in Donbas in late 2014, Bentley decided to fight for the Donetsk People's Republic, perceiving it as a battle against fascism and injustices in Ukraine. Bentley acquired the nom de guerre "Texas", and was also known as the "Donbass Cowboy" in Russian, rather than Ukrainian, orthography.[10][11]

In 2015, The Independent wrote that his involvement "highlights the complex motivations behind foreign participation in the conflict".[3] Bentley fought for the Vostok Battalion and XAH Spetsnaz Battalion in 2014, 2015 and 2017. In 2015, Bentley began uploading videos to YouTube, and focused on these activities after he stopped fighting in 2017.[5] The BBC featured Bentley in a July 2017 article titled "The communist soldier using charity sites to fund his war". The article also featured Bentley's friend Graham Phillips, and also Patrick Lancaster who distanced himself from Bentley and was critical of Bentley's use of crowdfunding, leading to restrictions on his crowdfunding activities.[12]

Bentley received a Donetsk People's Republic passport in 2017.[1]

Later years and death

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In 2020, Bentley received full Russian citizenship.[2][11] At the beginning of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Bentley posted a video stating that he and Russian soldiers would be "bringing the hammer down" on Ukraine. The video went viral before being deleted by YouTube, and Bentley's channel was removed from YouTube. Bentley told Rolling Stone, in an article titled The Bizarre Story of How a Hardcore Texas Leftist Became a Frontline Putin Propagandist, "I don't give a fuck what they think about me in the United States.... the government — or most of the people".[2] Bentley focused on work for Russian state media and social media channels for the next two years.[5]

Bentley was reported missing in the Petrovsky region on April 8, 2024. His wife said he had been detained by unidentified Russian military personnel.[5][13] After an 11 day campaign to find Bentley, on April 19 the Vostok Battalion confirmed Bentley's death via social media.[5][14] Alexander Khodakovsky, a senior Vostok battalion figure, demanded on his Telegram channel that "those who killed Russell Bentley" be punished, but later deleted the message.[15][16][17][18]

According to Stephen Hall, a researcher on Russian affairs at the University of Bath, the "most likely scenario is that [Bentley] was killed by Russian soldiers who mistook him for an American spy".[8] Reports from Le Monde and Belsat indicated that the soldiers—who were allegedly intoxicated—accused Bentley of acting as a spotter for Ukrainian rocket artillery.[19][20] Sources close to the leadership of the Donetsk People's Republic further alleged that Bentley had been subject to sexual violence before his death; Le Monde reported that the military board of inquiry had opened investigations into both murder and rape.[19][20] On April 28, Bentley's Telegram channel reported that his vehicle had been found near the frontline, incinerated with his remains inside in an apparent attempt to conceal the crime.[19] Al Jazeera 360 documented Bentley's story in A Diary of a Fighter.[21]

In September 2024, four Russian servicemen, Vitaly Vasnyatsky, Vladislav Agaltsev, Vladimir Bazhin and Andrey Yordanov, were accused of abuse of authority resulting in Bentley's death (article 286 of Russia's Criminal Code), desecration of his body (article 244), and concealment of crimes (articles 33 and 316). The Investigative Committee of Russia heard that Agaltsev and Yordanov killed Bentley on April 8, placed his body in a vehicle which was subsequently blown up in an attempt to cover up the murder, then moved his remains to another location with the assistance of Vasnyatsky and Bazhin.[22] The suspects were members of the Russian Army's 5th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade based in Donetsk Oblast and under the command of Major General Pavel Klimenko.[23] Newsweek wrote that Bentley had supposedly been misidentified as a spy. Bentley was reportedly taken to a cave and tortured to death, before being put into a car which was then destroyed with explosives. Bentley's body had not been recovered at the time of the Newsweek article.[24]

Klimenko was killed by a Ukrainian drone on November 6, 2024, before Bentley's body had been recovered.[25] On December 8, 2025, Vasnyatsky, Agaltsev, Bazhin, and Yordanov were sentenced by a court-martial in Donetsk to up to 12 years' imprisonment over Bentley's killing, with Vansyatsky, Yordanov and Agaltsev stripped of their ranks.[26]

Electoral history

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1990 United States Senate election in Minnesota[27]
Party Candidate Votes %
Democratic (DFL) Paul Wellstone 911,999 50.49%
Ind.-Republican Rudy Boschwitz (incumbent) 864,375 47.86%
Grassroots Russell B. Bentley 29,820 1.65%
Total votes 1,806,194 100.00%

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Smith, Sonia (March 21, 2018). "War of Words: Meet the Texan Trolling for Putin". Texas Monthly. Retrieved April 15, 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "The Bizarre Story of How a Hardcore Texas Leftist Became a Frontline Putin Propagandist". Rolling Stone. March 3, 2022. Retrieved April 4, 2025.
  3. ^ a b Sengupta, Kim (September 24, 2015). "Ukraine crisis: Meet the foreign nationals fighting for the Donetsk People's Republic". The Independent. Retrieved March 27, 2024.
  4. ^ "How a Texan Trolling for Putin Met His End". Texas Monthly. May 16, 2024. Retrieved January 20, 2025.
  5. ^ a b c d e f "US citizen who fought with pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine reported dead". The Guardian. April 19, 2024. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved April 20, 2024.
  6. ^ a b "Exclusive: Russell Bentley, Texas Man in Russian Army, Says He's 'Liberating' Ukraine". Newsweek. March 3, 2022. Retrieved September 11, 2022.
  7. ^ a b "Pro-Kremlin Texan Russell Bentley, who fought for Russia, found dead in Ukraine". New York Post. April 20, 2024. Retrieved October 19, 2024.
  8. ^ a b Seibt, Sebastion (April 27, 2024). "Who was the 'Donbass Cowboy', the pro-Russian Texan who died in Donetsk?". France 24. Paris. Archived from the original on August 16, 2024. Retrieved August 17, 2024.
  9. ^ "Who is Russell Bonner Bentley? Texas Man 'On the Front With Russian Troops' in Ukraine". Newsweek. March 1, 2022. Retrieved March 27, 2024.
  10. ^ Vitkine, Benoît (May 5, 2024). "Russell 'Texas' Bentley: The life and death of an American from Donetsk". Le Monde. Paris. Retrieved September 23, 2024.
  11. ^ a b Smith, Sonia (May 16, 2024). "How a Texan Trolling for Putin Met His End". Texas Monthly. Austin, Texas. Retrieved September 23, 2024.
  12. ^ "The communist soldier using charity sites to fund his war". BBC News. July 24, 2017. Retrieved March 27, 2024.
  13. ^ "American missing in Russian-controlled east Ukraine, say local police". Reuters. Retrieved April 15, 2024.
  14. ^ Батальон Восток
  15. ^ Американец Рассел Бентли, работавший на российскую пропаганду, погиб в Донецке.
  16. ^ В "ДНР" российские танкисты выкрали и убили известного американского коммуниста.
  17. ^ В Донецке российские военные убили американца, воевавшего за "ДНР" с 2014 года
  18. ^ Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 20, 2024 Institute for the Study of War, April 20, 2024. Retrieved April 21, 2024.
  19. ^ a b c Lemaître, Frédéric (May 5, 2024). "Russell 'Texas' Bentley: The life and death of an American from Donetsk". Le Monde. Retrieved February 24, 2026.
  20. ^ a b "Russian soldiers will stand trial for the murder of American Russell Bentley". Belsat. September 20, 2024. Retrieved February 24, 2026.
  21. ^ "Russell Bentley: Pro-Russia fighter from US dies after Donetsk 'abduction'". Al Jazeera. Retrieved September 12, 2024.
  22. ^ Мотызлевская, Полина (September 20, 2024). "СКР установил всех причастных к убийству военкора Рассела Бентли" [The Investigative Committee of Russia has identified all those involved in the murder of war correspondent Russell Bentley]. Kommersant (in Russian). Retrieved September 20, 2024.
  23. ^ "Russian General Alleged to Have Organized Torture Camp Killed in Ukraine – Reports". The Moscow Times. November 8, 2024. Retrieved November 8, 2024.
  24. ^ "Russia Charges Soldiers Over Torture, Murder of Texan Russell Bentley". Newsweek. September 20, 2024. Retrieved January 31, 2025.
  25. ^ Tom Parfitt (November 8, 2024). "Russian 'torture camp general' killed in Ukraine drone strike". The Times. Retrieved July 27, 2025.
  26. ^ "Court in Occupied Donetsk Jails Russian Soldiers in Killing of American Fighter". The Moscow Times. December 8, 2025. Retrieved December 8, 2025.
  27. ^ "Our Campaigns - MN US Senate Race - Nov 06, 1990".
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