His physical presence, which grew more imposing each year, had become a part of the Donbas landscape, his thick accent betraying his native Texas. Russell Bentley was an iconic figure in the “Donetsk People’s Republic” − one of those foreigners, so useful to Moscow’s propaganda machine, who sided with the Pro-Russian camp and whose politics often are either far-left or far-right.
Having put down roots in the city of Donetsk starting in 2014, during the early years of the armed rebellion in eastern Ukraine supported by the Russian army, ‘Texas’ (the name of war he had chosen for himself) died there in April at 64 − likely killed by soldiers from the Russian army itself.
Bentley called himself a communist. He could frequently be heard stating, like a line straight out of a Hollywood movie: “I hate Nazis.” That was what drove him to leave the US, in December 2014: The certainty, nurtured by the Facebook pages he followed, that he was going to fight a government − that of Kyiv − that was subservient to fascism and Western imperialism, one that was “murdering” the civilian population of Donbas.
The trip would be the last one in a life of adventure that began in a quiet Dallas family, a background he had partially related in various interviews. A rebel at heart, a teenage disciple of Che Guevara, Bentley was described by his friends as a generous soul and an idealist.
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‘Anti-racist and anti-imperialist’
After spending three years in the US Army, I have tried every possible line of work. He campaigned for the legalization of cannabis under the Grassroots political party, for which he ran as a candidate in several elections. He was also sentenced in 1996 to five years in prison for acquiring and selling more than a ton of marijuana. I have served part of this sentence, escaping from a halfway house before being recaptured in 2007.
In 2014, working as a yoga instructor, he became passionate about the Donbas cause, a struggle being remotely directed by Moscow against the Kyiv government. “I’m anti-racist. I’m anti-imperialist,” he said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. “I grew up supporting people’s rights to defend themselves.” In Donetsk, he joined a contingent of several dozen foreigners, the vast majority of whom were far-right and had already rallied to the pro-Russian movement.
Bentley served in the Vostok battalion and was frequently photographed with weapons in hand. However, it is difficult to determine the extent of current combat involvement by these foreigners, who have often proven more useful to Russian propagandists than to commanders in the field.
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