Donetsk Court Jails Four Soldiers Over Torture and Murder of American Volunteer Russell Bentley

A court in Russian-held Donetsk on Monday sentenced four Russian servicemen for the April 2024 killing of Russell Bentley, a 64-year-old American who had fought with pro‑Moscow separatists since 2014. The verdict drew attention because Moscow rarely disciplines troops serving in Ukraine and often portrays them as heroes.

The Donetsk court found Major Vitaly Vansyatsky and Lieutenant Andrei Iordanov guilty of beating and torturing Bentley to death; both were sentenced to 12 years in a penal colony and stripped of their ranks. Sergeant Vladislav Agaltsev received an 11-year term, and a fourth soldier was given 1.5 years for concealing the crime, the judgment said.

According to the court, the soldiers detained Bentley after mistaking him for a U.S. spy while he was preparing to film the aftermath of a Ukrainian strike. They allegedly "reported to their military unit command on the discovery of a saboteur," put a bag over his head, and beat and tortured him to force a confession. After he died, the men placed his body in the trunk of a car and detonated the vehicle in an apparent attempt to conceal the crime.

Who Was Russell Bentley?

Bentley, known online as "Texas," was a controversial and highly visible figure in Donetsk. A former U.S. Army serviceman in his youth, he obtained Russian citizenship and promoted pro‑Moscow narratives through social media and contributions to state-backed outlets. He had fought with pro‑Russian separatists in the Donbas region since 2014 and featured in international profiles, including a 2022 Rolling Stone piece that chronicled his transformation from a Texas leftist to a Kremlin sympathizer.

Bentley also used crowdfunding to finance trips and projects in eastern Ukraine; in November 2014 he launched a GoFundMe described as a "fact-finding mission" to Donbas and raised roughly $2,000. He was affiliated with the Russia-based communist movement Essence of Time, whose channels hosted some of his footage encouraging Western supporters to travel to the region.

Context and Reactions

Kyiv and international rights groups have repeatedly accused Russian forces and allied fighters of torturing detainees in Ukraine. The Donetsk court ruling is notable both for the severity of the allegations and for the fact that Russian authorities seldom publicly punish soldiers for crimes committed in the conflict.

Court Finding: The defendants beat and tortured Bentley after mistaking him for a saboteur, then attempted to conceal the killing by destroying his body in a car explosion.

The sentencing is likely to draw scrutiny from international observers and human-rights organizations, as well as renewed attention to the presence of foreign volunteers on both sides of the conflict.