Four Russian soldiers have been charged by the Kremlin with killing a US citizen.
Russell Bentley, 64, who fought alongside pro-Putin rebels in eastern Ukraine, was tortured and murdered by Russian servicemen, Kremlin investigators said on Friday.
Bentley, a self-described communist from Dallas, Texas, went missing in the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk in April and was later found dead.
Nicknamed “Texas”, he regularly appeared on pro-Kremlin social media channels, backing Moscow’s full-scale military offensive.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which looks into major crimes, identified the suspects as Russian Armed Forces servicemen Vitaly Vansyatsky, Vladislav Agaltsev, Vladimir Bazhin and Andrei Iordanov.
It is a rare instance of Russia accusing active soldiers in Ukraine – who are glorified at home – of committing crimes.
According to investigators, three of the men tortured Bentley on April 8, leading to his death. Vansyatsky and Agaltsev then allegedly blew up a car with Bentley’s body inside and ordered Bazhin to conceal the remains.
The men face charges including abuse of power resulting in death, desecration and concealment of a body.
The motive behind Bentley’s murder is not known, but allies of the deceased soldier have speculated that he may have been mistaken for a spy. Bentley’s wife, Lyudmila, previously claimed that Russian soldiers from a tank battalion abducted him.
She had issued an appeal to Vladimir Putin to help find her husband’s remains.
Following Bentley’s death, the Vostok Battalion, of which he was a member, released a statement on Telegram calling for “those who killed Russell Bentley” to be handed an “exemplary punishment”.
Bentley was a long-time supporter of the Kremlin, having joined pro-Russia separatists in 2014 to fight against Ukrainian forces following the occupation of Crimea.
He fought for the Donetsk-based Vostok battalion between 2014 and 2017 and became a Russian citizen in 2021.
Bentley is understood to have served in the US military as a young adult before returning to civilian life and mounting a third-party bid for the Senate in Minnesota.
He is believed to have served time in prison in the US for trafficking cannabis.
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