Russell Bonner Bentley

Prior to his activities in Donbas, Bentley was a marijuana activist who stood for election in the U.S. Senate, and a convicted drug trafficker who spent five years in prison and several years as a fugitive. He became a naturalized Russian citizen in 2020. In April 2024 he was kidnapped and murdered by Russian soldiers in what may have been a case of mistaken identity.

Biography Early life Bentley was born in 1960 to a wealthy family in Austin, Texas. Until Bentley was age eight, they lived in Highland Park, Texas, which Bentley later described as "very exclusive" and "basically the Beverly Hills of Dallas."

In Donbas

Early years In 2014, Bentley was following the war in Donbas. After the Ukrainian air strike on Luhansk on June 2, 2014, Bentley was moved by video of a fatally wounded young woman.

In 2015, The Independent wrote that his involvement "highlights the complex motivations behind foreign participation in the conflict".

Bentley received a Donetsk People's Republic passport in 2017. After an 11 day campaign to find Bentley, on April 19 the Vostok Battalion confirmed Bentley's death via social media. Alexander Khodakovsky, a senior Vostok battalion figure, demanded on his Telegram channel that "those who killed Russell Bentley" be punished, but later deleted the message.

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". On April 28, Bentley's Telegram channel reported that his vehicle had been found near the frontline, incinerated with his remains inside in an apparent attempt to conceal the crime.

In September 2024, four Russian servicemen, Vitaly Vasnyatsky, Vladislav Agaltsev, Vladimir Bazhin and Andrey Yordanov, were accused of abuse of authority resulting in Bentley's death (article 286 of Russia's Criminal Code), desecration of his body (article 244), and concealment of crimes (articles 33 and 316). The Investigative Committee of Russia heard that Agaltsev and Yordanov killed Bentley on April 8, 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 Vasnyatsky and Bazhin. The suspects were members of the Russian Army's 5th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade based in Donetsk Oblast and under the command of Major General Pavel Klimenko. Newsweek wrote that Bentley had supposedly been misidentified as a spy. Bentley was reportedly taken to a cave and tortured to death, before being put into a car which was then destroyed with explosives. Bentley's body had not been recovered at the time of the Newsweek article.

Klimenko was killed by a Ukrainian drone on November 6, 2024, before Bentley's body had been recovered. On December 8, 2025, Vasnyatsky, Agaltsev, Bazhin, and Yordanov were sentenced by a court-martial in Donetsk to up to 12 years' imprisonment over Bentley's killing, with Vansyatsky, Yordanov and Agaltsev stripped of their ranks.

Electoral history