Russell Bentley poses with the flag of the “Donetsk People’s Republic”. Photo: WarTranslated / X
A military court in the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine has sentenced four Russian soldiers to prison terms ranging from 18 months to 12 years for their involvement in the death of a US citizen who was fighting with pro-Russian militias in Donbas, the court’s press service announced on Monday.
Russell Bentley, 64, was declared dead in April 2024, less than two weeks after his wife reported him missing, saying he had disappeared after leaving their home in Donetsk to assist victims of Ukrainian shelling in the city.
According to the court ruling, two of the defendants — Vitaly Vansyatsky and Andrey Iordanov — saw Bentley “preparing a video of the aftermath of a missile strike” on 8 April 2024, accused him of being a “saboteur” and forced him into a car with a bag over his head.
Vansyatsky and Iordanov were then joined by a third serviceman, Vladislav Agaltsev. The three men beat and tortured Bentley, resulting in his death. They then put Bentley in the boot of their car and blew up the vehicle. A fourth soldier, Vladimir Bazhin, came back on the following day to hide Bentley’s remains, which have still not been found.
Bazhin was sentenced to 18 months in prison for concealing a crime, while Agaltsev was sentenced to 11 years, and Vansyatsky and Iordanov were sentenced to 12 years each for “abuse of power resulting in death”.
Bentley, a self-declared communist known as “Texas”, left his native Austin in 2014 to fight with Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine. He obtained Russian citizenship in 2021 before becoming a “full-time war correspondent” for Russian state news agency Sputnik in 2023.
Reacting to the verdict on Monday, Russian pro-war blogger Alexander Kots said it was “truly sad” that Bentley, whom he called “an American who loved the Russian Donbass with all his heart”, had died at the hands of “those he considered his own”, but lauded the fact that the perpetrators had been brought to justice.
