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Russell Bentley

American soldier in Russian military (1960–2024) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Russell Bentley
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For the American politician from Kentucky, see Russell Bentley (politician).

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, self-described "information warrior".[2][1][3]

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

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Biography

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Early life

Bentley was born in 1960 in Austin, to a wealthy family, growing up in the affluent town of Highland Park, Texas, until the age of eight. Bentley would later tell Rolling Stone magazine “I grew up in a very exclusive area of Dallas called Highland Park, it’s basically the Beverly Hills of Dallas.”[2] As a teenager, Bentley began reading leftist literature, becoming a socialist. He described himself as the “black sheep” of his family, due to his interest in, and support of leftist causes.[2] At 16, he attended high school for one semester before dropping out. Bentley later got his GED, and at age 20, was convinced by his father to join the U.S. Army. He served in the army for three years, stationed in Louisiana and Germany. After being honorably discharged from the army, he then moved to South Padre Island where he partied for years, worked variously as a waiter, and playing guitar in a group called the Asbestos Band, which played a mix of covers. At this time, Bentley was known as “Bongo.”[1][2]

Marijuana activism, imprisonment, fugitive

In 1990 Bentley followed a girlfriend, and moved to Minneapolis, initially working as a lumberjack. Bentley soon became a pro-marijuana activist, joining the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and the pro-legalization Grassroots Party. At age 30, in the 1990 election, he ran as a U.S. Senate third-party candidate for the Grassroots Party in Minnesota, gathering 1.65% of the vote. In the mid-1990s, Bentley would also visit communist Cuba, where he deepened his leftist convictions, becoming a communist himself.[1][2] Bentley had also started selling marijuana, and in February 1996 Bentley's house was raided by the police and he was arrested for felony trafficking of marijuana, receiving a sentence of five years and three months. Although he was supposed to be released at the end of 1999, in August 1999, Bentley broke out of the minimum security prison in which he was being held.[2] For the next few years Bentley lived as a fugitive, mostly in Washington. He took part in the anti-globalization uprising 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.” In 2007, Bentley was captured and sent to a maximum-security prison to serve the remainder of his sentence. He was released from prison the following summer, remaining under supervised release, which mandated a ban on intoxicants and a 12-step program, until 2012.[1][2] Bentley was so enraged by the Killing of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 that he donned rock climbing gear and scaled a recruiting billboard for the US Marine Corps in Austin, defacing it with the words “FUCK NATO” in six-foot letters.[2] By 2014, Bentley was working as an arborist in Round Rock, Texas.[9]

In Donbas

Early years

In 2014, Bentley was actively following the war which had broken out in Donbas. After the Ukrainian air strike on the centre of Luhansk on 2 June 2014, Bentley was moved by video footage of a young woman fatally wounded.[2] Despite not speaking Russian, Bentley resolved to travel over to take part in armed conflict against the Ukrainian forces he held responsible for killing the people of Donbas. 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 utilized crowdfunding platforms to finance his involvement in the Russo-Ukrainian war, setting up a GoFundMe campaign titled "Fact Finding Mission to Donbass" to finance his activities.[5]

Soon after arriving in Donbas, in late 2014, Bentley decided to fight for the Donetsk People's Republic, perceiving it as a "battle against fascism,” driven by his stated desire to take a stand against what he saw as "injustices in Ukraine.” In Donbas, Bentley soon acquired the moniker "Texas," described by Benoît Vitkine of Le Monde as a "nom de guerre.” He was also known as the "Donbass Cowboy," with the word "Donbas" written with the Russian orthography instead of the Ukrainian one.[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 started doing videos for YouTube, and he would go on to focus on these activities after he stopped fighting, in 2017.[4] The BBC wrote an article featuring Bentley in July 2017, titled "The communist soldier using charity sites to fund his war.” The article also featured Bentley's friend Graham Phillips, and Patrick Lancaster, who distanced himself from Bentley at this time, and was critical of Bentley's use of crowdfunding, leading to restrictions being put on his crowdfunding activities. Lancaster disassociated himself from Bentley at this time.[12] Also in 2017, Bentley received a Donetsk People's Republic passport.[1]

Later years, and death

In 2020, Bentley went on to receive full Russian citizenship.[11][2] At the beginning of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Bentley posted a video on YouTube in which he stated he, along with Russian soldiers around him, would be "bringing the hammer down" on Ukraine. The video went viral, before being deleted by YouTube, with Bentley's channel being removed from YouTube shortly after. At this time, Bentley was the subject of a major interview by Rolling Stone, entitled The Bizarre Story of How a Hardcore Texas Leftist Became a Frontline Putin Propagandist. Bentley told the magazine "I don't give a fuck what they think about me in the United States.... the government — or most of the people".[2] For the next two years, Bentley would focus on his media work for Russian state media, and social media channels.[4]

Bentley was reported missing on April 8, 2024, in the Petrovsky region of Donetsk. His wife said that he had been detained by unidentified Russian military personnel.[13][4] A campaign to find Bentley went on for the next 11 days, yet on April 19 the Vostok Battalion confirmed Bentley's death, via social media.[14][4] Alexander Khodakovsky, a senior Vostok battalion figure, demanded on his Telegram channel that "those who killed Russell Bentley" be punished, but later deleted this 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] Al Jazeera 360 documented Bentley's story in A Diary of a Fighter.[19]

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 (article 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 the other two soldiers.[20] The suspects were said to be members of the Russian Army's 5th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade based in Donetsk Oblast and under the command of Major General Pavel Klimenko.[21] Newsweek wrote at the time that Bentley had supposedly been misidentified by Russian soldiers 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.[22]

Pavel Klimenko was killed on November 6, 2024, by a Ukrainian drone. At the time of his death, Bentley's body had still not been recovered.[23] On December 8, 2025, Vasnyatsky, Agaltsev, Bazhin and Yordanov were sentenced to up to 12 years' imprisonment over Bentley's killing by a court-martial in Donetsk, with Vansyatsky, Yordanov and Agaltsev stripped of their ranks.[24]

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