TEXAN RUSSIAN SOLDIER IS M.I.A.
US vet helped ’14 attack on Ukraine
A pro-Kremlin Texan who traveled to Ukraine a decade ago to fight alongside Russian soldiers in Donbas has not been heard from since Monday.
Russell Bentley went missing in the Russian-controlled region of Donetsk Oblast, according to Reuters, citing Russian online news outlet Mash. He was not fighting in the current war.
In 2014, the 64-year-old former pothead, who used “Texas” as his military call sign, volunteered to fight against Ukrainian forces, leaving behind a yoga instructor girlfriend.
He relied on crowdfunding to finance his trip to Ukraine.
The self-proclaimed communist and US Army vet never returned to America after earning his Russian citizenship. Instead, he started working as a reporter for the state-owned Sputnik news agency.
As unsubstantiated reports about his remains being recovered from the outskirts of Gorlovka spread online Saturday, so, too, did rumors that his disappearance was a kidnapping.
Changing battlefront
A woman claiming to be his wife, Lyudmila, released a video message calling for his safe return. She claims he went to help Russian soldiers following a Ukrainian bombardment and never returned.
She said she went to look for him, only finding his car, baseball cap, glasses and his phone, which she said was destroyed.
Bentley’s disappearance comes as Ukraine faces increasing losses from Russian attacks.
An American official told Bloomberg Ukraine’s forces could crumble, claiming the country hasn’t been this vulnerable since the start of the war.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander in chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, said the eastern front has been decimated “in recent days” amid stepped-up shelling.
The Kyiv Independent reports a recent lack of rainfall has helped Russia escalate its armored assaults in Bakhmut, Lyman and Pokrovsk — allowing tanks and other armored vehicles to overwhelm Ukraine’s defenders.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is increasingly short on ammunition and waiting on Congress to approve an aid package.