Just days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a now-deleted video surfaced on YouTube, quickly spreading across social media.
The video showed the American cowboy from Texas, Russell Bentley (64), in front of several Russian soldiers and in armored vehicles with the symbol Z.
Missing: – Killed
– These men are tough. They are ready, and there are a lot of them, says Bentley in a broad Texas accent in the video.
According to Newsweek magazine, the video received millions of views.
On his own website, Bentley, who also goes by the nickname “Texas”, writes that he has blogged about the war in the Donbas region of Ukraine since 2014, according to the media.
COMMUNIST: Russell Bentley is a self-proclaimed communist. He moved to the Russian-occupied part of eastern Ukraine in 2014 to fight for Russia and Putin. Photo: Russell Bentley/ Instagram
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Probably killed
In the early years, he fought side by side with the pro-Russian separatists, before he eventually began as an “information warrior”, as he himself referred to it.
In his work as an information warrior, he spent his time spreading President Vladimir Putin’s sermon that Russia is Ukraine’s “liberator” and that they will “save Ukraine from Nazis”.
– Serious reactions
In an interview with Rolling Stone in March 2022, Bentley referred to the war in Ukraine as “the battle between good and evil, about the future of the world”.
Now, two years later, Russell Bentley has been reported dead. Much may indicate that he has been abducted and killed by Russian soldiers.
On Tuesday 23 April, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov was arrested by the Federal Security Service FSB. This could be Putin’s warning to the country’s defense minister, experts believe. Video: AP, Reuters. Reporter: Marte Nyløkken Helseth / Dagbladet TV.
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The rich man’s son became a communist
Bentley was born in 1960 into a wealthy family in the state of Texas. He himself says in the interview with Rolling Stone that he stood out early on and was attracted to the left wing and communism.
– I read about Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara. I understood that the Vietnamese had the right to defend their country against foreign invaders and that the United States was wrong, he said.
New claims: Putin was not behind
Bentley enlisted in the US Army as a 20-year-old and was stationed in Germany and Louisiana.
He has also been an active campaigner to legalize cannabis in the United States, selling it himself. He thus received a prison sentence when he was arrested and sentenced for smuggling in 1996.
The contempt for the United States started with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When there were riots in Ukraine in 2014, and the pro-Russian government in Kyiv was overthrown, Bentley was convinced that the United States had had a hand in the game.
He felt he had to do something himself, so he sold everything he had in the United States and moved to Russia, crossed the border into Donetsk, and became part of the separatist army, he told Rolling Stone.
CRITICAL: Russell Bentley has long been critical of the United States. Photo: Russell Bentley/ Instagram
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Taken by Russian army
In mid-April, the American disappeared without a trace.
On April 12, his wife Lyudmila issued a statement to the Russian Telegram media Mash saying that the couple had been together on April 8 in Donetsk when the bombs fell on the city. The wife says that Bentley went to see if he could help the locals, but he never returned.
The wife has since found Bentley’s car where she also found his cap, glasses and a broken phone. But Bentley was nowhere to be seen.
– Putin is in a hurry
On the same day, the police in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region issued a wanted notice for the 64-year-old. There it emerged that he had last been seen four days earlier.
But just days later, Ljudmila wrote a new message on Bentley’s VKontakte profile, which is equivalent to a Russian version of Facebook. There she claims that she has bombproof, reliable sources that her husband is being detained by soldiers from the 5th Brigade of the Russian Army.
On Friday last week, the American from Texas was declared dead, which has since been confirmed by several sources, including his wife.
THE SEPARATISTS: Russell Bentley has stated that he fought with Russian separatists from 2014 to 2017. Photo: Russell Bentley/ Instagram
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Putin begs
In a post on Bentley’s VKontakte, his wife writes that she has neither seen him alive, nor his body, nor his remains, and she is at the same time stunned that she has not received all the information about what happened.
Ljudmila believes that there are thus a number of unanswered questions, which she now hopes that Putin can help her answer.
In a video on social media on Tuesday evening, Lyudmila made a plea to the Russian president, asking him to answer the questions.
Was buried in Russia by mistake
– Everyone knows that as soon as you approach Vladimir Putin directly, all problems are solved. Therefore, I turn to the President of Russia and ask him for his full assistance to either find my husband alive, if possible, or give me his remains, she says.
At the same time, she says that she has met a lot of resistance when she tries to share information about the situation. Therefore, she asks Putin to reveal the truth.
The Kremlin has so far not publicly commented on Russell Bentley’s death.
