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Russell Bonner Bentley III (Russian: Рассел Бентли, romanized: Rassel Bentli; 20 June 1960 – 8 April 2024), also known as Texas (Russian: Техас, pronounced in Russian like "Tekhas") and the Donbass Cowboy, was an American man who served in the Vostok Battalion and XAH Spetsnaz Battalion in 2014, 2015 and 2017 on the side of the Donetsk People's Republic.[1][2] He was a YouTuber until his channel was deleted in early 2022.[3][4] He also worked for the Russian state-owned Sputnik news agency as a war correspondent.[5] He became a Russian citizen via naturalization in 2021. 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.
Biography
Early life
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.[1][6]
Marijuana activism, conviction and imprisonment
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.[1][6] 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.[1][6]
Pro-Russian activism
By 2014, Bentley was working as an arborist in Round Rock, Texas.[7] 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.[6] He arrived in Donetsk on December 7, 2014.[3] He utilized crowdfunding platforms to finance his involvement in the Russo-Ukrainian war, setting up a GoFundMe campaign to finance his move to the Donbas on a self-described "Fact Finding Mission to Donbass".[8] During his time he nicknamed himself "Texas," described by Benoît Vitkine of Le Monde as a "nom de guerre".[9] He was also known as the "Donbass Cowboy," with the word "Donbas" written with the Russian orthography instead of the Ukrainian one.[10]
He received a Donetsk People's Republic passport,[1] and in 2021 he received Russian citizenship.[10]
Military and political stance
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.[2]
Disappearance and death
According to the local police and his wife, Bentley went missing on April 8, 2024.[11] His wife reported he had been detained by unidentified Russian military personnel.[5] The Vostok Battalion confirmed his death on April 19, 2024, via social media.[12][5]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.[13][14][15][16][excessive citations]
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."[17]
Al Jazeera 360 documented Bentley’s story in A Diary of a Fighter.[18]
In September 2024, four Russian servicemen, Vitaly Vasnyatsky, Vladislav Agaltsev, Vladimir Bazhin and Andrey Yordanov, were charged with abuse of authority resulting in Bentley's death (article 286 of Criminal Code), desecration of his body (article 244) and concealment of crimes (article 33 and 316). The Investigative Committee of Russia found that Agaltsev and Yordanov killed Bentley on 8 April, 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.[19] 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.[20]
Electoral history
1990 United States Senate election in Minnesota[21]
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