| Russell Bentley | |
| Birth Place: | Austin, Texas, United States |
| Death Place: | Donetsk, Ukraine |
| Allegiance: | Russia |
| Branch: |
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| Serviceyears: | 2014–2024 |
| Battles: | |
Russell Bonner Bentley III[1] (Russian: Рассел Бентли|Rassel Bentli; 1960 – April 2024), also known as Texas and the Donbass Cowboy, was an American man who served in Vostok Battalion and XAH Spetsnaz Battalion in 2014, 2015 and 2017 on the side of the Donetsk People's Republic. He was a YouTuber until his channel was deleted in early 2022.[2] He also worked for the Russian state-owned Sputnik news agency as a war correspondent.[3] Prior to his activities in the Donbas, he was a marijuana activist and smuggler who was later convicted of drug smuggling and spent five years in prison.
Bentley was born in 1960 in Austin, and grew up in Highland Park, Texas until he was eight. Bentley began reading leftist literature as a teenager and became a socialist. 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, and was stationed in Louisiana and Germany. After being honorably discharged from the army, he moved to South Padre Island where he worked as a waiter.[4] [5]
In 1990, Bentley moved to Minneapolis. Initially working as a lumberjack, he later sold marijuana instead. He became a marijuana activist, joining the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and the pro-legalization Grassroots Party. At age 30, he ran as a U.S. Senate third-party candidate for the Grassroots Party in the 1990 election, 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. In February 1996, Bentley's house was raided by the police and he was arrested for felony trafficking of marijuana. He received a sentence of five years and three months. Although he was supposed to be released at the end of 1999, in August 1999, Bentley escaped from prison. He lived as a fugitive until 2007, when he was captured and sent to a maximum-security prison to serve the remainder of his sentence. He was released from prison the following summer.
By 2014, Bentley was working as an arborist in Round Rock, Texas.[6] Bentley left his life in the United States, including a relationship with a yoga instructor, to join pro-Russian forces in Donetsk in Ukraine, motivated by a desire to combat Ukrainian forces. He arrived in Donetsk on December 7, 2014. He utilized crowdfunding platforms to finance his involvement in the Ukraine conflict, setting up a GoFundMe campaign to finance his move to the Donbas on a self-described "Fact Finding Mission to Donbass".[7]
Bentley decided to fight for the Donetsk People's Republic. He expressed a strong commitment to what he perceived as a "battle against fascism", driven by the desire to take a stand against what he saw as "injustices in Ukraine". The Independent wrote that his involvement highlights the complex motivations behind foreign participation in the conflict.[1]
According to the local police and his wife, Bentley went missing on April 8, 2024.[8] His wife reported he had been detained by unidentified Russian military personnel. The Vostok Battalion confirmed his death on April 19, 2024, via social media.[9] Alexander Khodakovsky, one of the leaders of the self-proclaimed DPR, demanded in his telegram channel that “those who killed Russell Bentley” be punished, but later deleted this message.[10] [11] [12] [13]
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."[14]
Al Jazeera 360 has documented Bentley’s story in A Diary of a Fighter.[15]