A translation of an article, appearing at Tsargrad.tv on the 14th of December 2024.
“I’m alive!”: The strange case of Russell Bentley — the perpetrators did not appear in court. The murdered militia member appeared to his friends in a dream
On December 5, the trial pertaining to “the case of Russell Bentley” — an American volunteer with the call sign Texas — commenced in the garrison court of Donetsk. In 2014, he burned bridges in the United States, came to fight for Donbass, and participated in the battles for Donetsk airport. And on April 8, 2024, he was killed in Donetsk. By our own people. Four servicemen from the 5th motorized Infantry brigade of the DPR, including one of its commanders Vitaly Vansyatsky, are being tried for this crime. A journalist from Tsargrad called Lyudmila Bentley, Russell’s wife, to find out the details of the trial, and found out an amazing fact. Texas appeared almost simultaneously in a dream to three of his loved ones and uttered the same phrase: “I’m alive!”
The call was answered by the probable killer
So, there are four defendants in the dock: Vitaly Vansyatsky, Vladislav Agaltsev, Andrey Iordanov and Vladimir Bazhin. Surprisingly, they are all Donetsk residents, from Makeyevka…
This means that they couldn’t possibly not know Russell Bentley, who was a “landmark” of the DPR — not only a well-known militia member, but also a journalist, musician, and a frequent guest on local TV. And therefore, to detain, torture, kill Russell, and then methodically destroy his remains, you have to be either very unscrupulous or very stoned.
One has to wonder what the law enforcement system should be like, in order to impute part 5 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code for such a crime (abuse of official authority resulting in death by negligence)?
It is also interesting that when Lyudmila Bentley did not yet know where her husband had disappeared, she called Vansyatsky, unaware that the person on the other end of the line was the likely the killer of Russell. Vansyatsky said at the time that he knew nothing about any Bentley.
Recall that on April 8, Russell and Lyudmila arrived at the administration of the Petrovsky district of Donetsk, where the American was called to extend his monthly minimum social security (7,300 rubles).
At that moment, the arrival of the HIMARS happened nearby, and Texas rushed there by car to help possible victims (in Donetsk, many people do this in similar situations), but before reaching the place of arrival, he was stopped and then taken somewhere by the military. (Tsargrad described the whole situation in detail).
“Their motive is still unclear. I don’t see any logic in their actions. Russell always had with him a standard set of documents certifying his identity: a Russian passport with a residence permit in the Petrovsky district of Donetsk, a military ID card, a weapon permit, several journalistic certificates (at that time Bentley was a military correspondent of the Sputnik agency — the one headed by Margarita Simonyan and Dmitry Kiselyov). Establishing his identity was not a problem. They say that Russell tried to call someone. Of course, he did. To call me. We agreed that in some difficult situations, he calls, and I translate on the phone – I facilitate his dialogue with people with whom there is a problem. This was the case, for example, with a car repair technician. But this time they didn’t let him call. The phone was smashed so that it lay on the ground smoking. Where is the logic? If they suspected that he was some kind of spy, it would be logical to protect the phone like the apple of your eye to check contacts and correspondence”
— says Lyudmila Bentley.