The tragicomic story of a down-on-his-luck Texan who reinvented himself as a renegade war hero in a fake russian republic took an unexpected turn this week when he was allegedly kidnapped by Russian troops – after apparently being accused of being a CIA spy.
Russell Bentley, aka “Texas”, is perhaps the last person you would expect to have used ingenious espionage during the almost 10 years he lived among Russian fighters in Ukraineoccupied Donetsk region. A native of Dallas and convicted on drug trafficking charges in his home country, Bentley briefly made international headlines in 2014 when he was spotted wearing a cowboy hat with Russian fighters and spewing Kremlin propaganda about “Nazis” in Ukraine. He obtained Russian citizenship in 2020 after transforming himself into a combat veteran turned “journalist” for Kremlin-controlled media.
News of his disappearance earlier this month went unnoticed until his wife, Lyudmila Bentley, went public on Tuesday with claims that he had been kidnapped and taken hostage by Russian troops.
“Russell was brutally detained on April 8th,” wrote Lyudmila Bentley in a declaration on Telegram. “I BEG EVERYONE to do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to save my husband, our ‘Texas,’” she said, describing him as a “friend of Donbass and Russia.”
“Maybe there isn’t much time,” she said.
Russian propagandists claimed that Bentley disappeared after approaching the site of recent shelling or mortar attacks, and an independent Russian news website said he was taking photos of the damaged buildings. This detail led to a flood of conspiracy theories about Bentley potentially being a mole.
On Wednesday, Bentley’s friends attempted to quell those rumors, with his self-proclaimed “brother in arms,” identified only as Vasily, releasing a video to debunk claims that Bentley was “filming something on his phone.”
After finding Bentley’s phone broken, Vasily wrote, he was able to check it later, saying, “I didn’t find ANY PHOTOS or VIDEOS.”
Graham PhillipsAnother Westerner who connected with Russian forces in eastern Ukraine and knew Bentley, issued his own statement Wednesday, noting that “a small but active part of the Russian community is already writing against Texas, saying he was an ‘American spy’, etc.”
Strangely, after writing that such claims are “absurd” and unfair since Bentley is not around to defend himself, Phillips himself subtly criticized the Texas native for filming military activities, calling it “illegal and suspicious.” do it.
But, he said, “I hope for the best, that our Texas is alive and well.”
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