Texas Putin Fan Reportedly Arrested As Spy By Russia

The Daily Beast reports:

The tragicomic tale 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 abducted by Russian troops—after apparently being accused of being a CIA spy. Russell Bentley, also known as “Texas,” is perhaps the last person one would expect to have pulled off cunning spycraft for the nearly 10 years he’s been living among Russian fighters in Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk region.

A Dallas native with a conviction on drug charges back home, Bentley briefly seized international headlines back in 2014 when he was spotted in a cowboy hat with Russian fighters and spewing Kremlin propaganda about “Nazis” in Ukraine. He obtained Russian citizenship in 2020 after remodeling himself as a combat-vet-turned-“journalist” for Kremlin-controlled media.

Read the full article. My 2022 report on Bentley is here. As you can see below, there’s a lot of wild speculation as to his fate.

Russell Bentley, also known as “Texas,” an American Communist who joined the Russian forces in Donbass in 2015 and has stayed there ever since, has reportedly disappeared, according to his official Telegram channel. The irony of his disappearance is striking. I still recall his… pic.twitter.com/4yFelIBwhP

— COSSACKGUNDI (@cossackgundi) April 12, 2024

Russell Bentley defected to fight for Russia 10 years ago. He later became a propagandist and made a bit of a media splash when Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022. This morning, news outlets reported he’d gone missing in Donetsk. Now, accounts are saying he’s been found beheaded. pic.twitter.com/aSsUcAjN8e

— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) April 13, 2024

Russell Bentley aka ‘Texas’
helped to fight injustices and fascism in ukraine since 2014.
an true American hero! #RussellBentley#DPR pic.twitter.com/SOl8CDCNN7

— Johan Andersson 🇮🇶 (@halsamorsan) April 12, 2024