Russian military killed an American who fought in Ukraine on the side of the Russian Federation

Russell Bentley, 64, a veteran from Texas, left the United States in 2014 to fight for the Russian Federation. He served in Ukraine, in territory occupied by Russia. An American was killed after he was allegedly kidnapped by Putin's soldiers, reports Dailymail.

Photo: iStock.com/Igor Ivanov

On April 8, 2024, Bentley was detained by Russian troops in Donetsk, a region where he had been fighting alongside Putin's forces since 2014 following the annexation of Crimea.

Eleven days after his arrest, Bentley was found dead. Russian soldiers could have mistaken him for an American or NATO spy.

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His death caused outrage in the Russian media. Bentley was a propaganda darling in the regime country, even landing a job as a journalist at the state-run Sputnik-TV channel.

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Donbass Cowboy

Bentley fled to Russia from the US after Putin's initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014. A former US Army soldier, he became a favorite of Russian propagandists. He was presented as a "true American."

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It is unclear exactly how or for what reason Bentley, known as the Donbass Cowboy, was killed. According to unverified reports, he was kidnapped by “unknown people in military uniform.”

Eastern European news outlet NEXTA said Bentley was raped and killed by Russian soldiers after they mistook him for a NATO spy.

“As some Russian war correspondents suggested, after the rape, one of the officers could have said that it was no longer possible to let the American go, so they decided to kill him,” the publication said on Twitter.

"Any foreigner has become an enemy"

Despite the unclear details of the death, Bentley's death is blamed on general lawlessness in the occupied territories of Ukraine.

“The authorities can no longer control the xenophobia they themselves are fomenting. Any foreigner has become an enemy,” said Marat Gelman, a former head of Russian state television.

Before he was kidnapped, the controversial Texan was in the administrative office in Donetsk with his wife Lyudmila. According to her, they “saw a huge column of smoke after the explosion.”

“Russell rushed to help local residents and soon stopped communicating,” his wife noted.

Lyudmila is convinced that he was “detained illegally.”

She said she went to look for her husband, but could only find her husband's car, which contained only his hat and broken phone.

The US Embassy in Ukraine said it was aware of reports of Bentley's death.

“Whenever we learn of the death of a US citizen in Ukraine, we strive to contact the family and provide all possible consular assistance,” the embassy said.

Belaya Vorona

In 2022, Bentley was the subject of an article in Rolling Stone entitled "The Bizarre Story of How a Left-Wing Texan Became a Putin Propagandist." In it, he detailed his early interest in far-left politics.

“I grew up in a very exclusive neighborhood in Dallas called Highland Park. It’s basically Beverly Hills in Dallas,” he said at the time.

Bentley was the black sheep of his family. As a teenager, he became interested in far-left movements, including communist ideas and leaders who opposed the Vietnam War.

“I read Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara... And I realized that the Vietnamese were right in defending their land from foreign invaders, and the United States was wrong,” he said in an interview. “I realized that Fidel and Che were right in overthrowing the foreign masters who turned Cuba into a casino and brothel. I am an anti-racist and an anti-imperialist. I grew up supporting people's right to self-defense."

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Bentley is a former drug dealer. He was sentenced to 5 years in 1996 for drug trafficking, but escaped from prison 3 years later.

The fugitive remained a fugitive until 2007, and was ordered to serve the remainder of his sentence in a maximum security prison.

Bentley was a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Minnesota in 1990 with 1,65% of the vote on a platform largely revolving around legalizing cannabis.

Boris

After Putin's 2014 invasion, he broke up with his yoga instructor girlfriend to join Russian forces, despite speaking almost no Russian.

At the time, the Texan justified his actions by saying he was “on the side of the little guys and protecting the good people from the extremely evil ones.”

“This is a battle not only for Ukraine. This is a battle between good and evil for the future of the world. And now it looks like peace might have a chance because we and our friends are kicking Nazi ass right now,” he told the magazine at the time.

His ultra-nationalist views have reportedly caused him to fall out of favor with the Kremlin. But the Texan expressed support for the authorities when Putin launched a full-scale invasion in 2022.

“We are going to the West together with the liberators of Ukraine. We can stop in Kyiv, we can stop on the English Channel. We can liberate the USA,” Bentley wrote on the Russian social network VKontakte.

It is known that while in Russia, the American took the name Boris.

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