Russia Charges 4 Soldiers Over Torture, Killing of Texas Man in Eastern Ukraine

A general view shows the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk, Ukraine, on Jan. 27, 2022. Reuters/Alexander Ermochenko/File Photo

Four Russian soldiers have been charged with the torture and murder of Russell Bentley, a 64-year-old American citizen who joined pro-Russia forces in Ukraine, Russia’s top investigative body has announced.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, announced on Sept. 20 that the Texan was tortured and killed on April 8 by the four soldiers, who allegedly blew up his body in an attempt to conceal the crime.

The four soldiers have been identified as Vitaly Vansyatsky, Vladislav Agaltsev, Vladimir Bazhin, and Andrei Iordanov. The investigation concluded that Vansyatsky, Agaltsev, and Iordanov tortured Bentley to death, after which Vansyatsky and Agaltsev blew up a car with Bentley’s body inside. Bazhin is accused of helping to conceal the remains by moving them to another location the next day.

The soldiers face charges including abuse of power resulting in death, desecration of a body, and attempted concealment of a serious crime. The Committee said that the accused soldiers are currently reviewing the charges before the indictment is finalized and sent for trial.

Bentley, who’s from Dallas, went missing in April in Donetsk, a city under Russian control in eastern Ukraine. At the time, Russia Today (RT) Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said in a post on Telegram that information had come to light indicating that Bentley had been killed.

“Russell Bentley, known as ‘Texas’, a real American, truly from Texas, was killed in Donetsk,” Simonyan wrote. “He was fighting for our guys there. He collaborated with our Sputnik.”

Bentley joined the pro-Russian Vostok Battalion in 2014, where he fought against Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region. He became a vocal supporter of the Russian-backed separatists and even worked as a journalist for the Kremlin-affiliated Sputnik news service. In 2021, Bentley was granted Russian citizenship.

The motive behind Bentley’s killing remains unclear, but some reports suggest he may have been mistaken for a U.S. spy. Russian media has speculated that confusion over Bentley’s background may have contributed to the crime.

Alexander Korobko, a Russian film director who had worked on a documentary about Bentley, said in a post on social media in April that the Texan had been abducted. He expressed his concerns about the abduction, raising questions about whether Bentley had been taken by corrupt elements within the Russian military.

“Witnesses report that ’men in camouflage, military uniforms’ took him,” Korobko wrote, according to a translation of his post, which was in Russian. “It’s possible they mistook him for a ’spy' and brought him to military interrogators. But that would be the best-case scenario, meaning they would sort things out and release him.”

“The worse scenario is if he was taken by ‘werewolves’ in uniform,” Korobko continued. “There are such people.”

Korobko contrasted these bad actors with the majority of soldiers he said he had encountered in Donetsk and Mariupol, warning of the damage done to the reputation of Russia’s military by a few rogue individuals.

Bentley’s wife, Lyudmila, had previously claimed that soldiers from a Russian tank battalion abducted him, according to The Moscow Times.

The case marks a rare public trial for Russian soldiers accused of serious crimes in Ukraine.