Suspects involved in the criminal case were identified as Russian Armed Forces servicemen Vitaly Vansyatsky, Vladislav Agaltsev, Vladimir Bazhin, and Andrey Iordanov. The individuals have been accused of felonies under Russia's Criminal Code, including the use of physical violence and torture, which resulted in the death of the victim through negligence, as well as the concealment of an especially grievous crime.
On April 8, Russian military servicemen Vansyatsky, Agaltsev, and Iordanov used physical violence and torture against Russell Bentley in Donetsk that led to the correspondent's death. On the same day, Vansyatsky and Agaltsev bkew up a VAZ 2115 car containing Bentley's body with TNT explosives.
On April 9, Bazhin, a serviceman of the same military unit, removed Bentley's remains from the scene on the instructions of Vansyatsky in a bid to conceal the heinous crime.
The accused have been provided with the materials of the criminal case. Subsequently, the case will be transferred for the indictment approval and court hearings.
Bentley was born in a well-to-do family in 1960 and grew up in an exclusive area of Dallas called Highland Park. The Vietnam War and its after-effects had a great impact on Russell's world view. He became an ardent anti-imperialist and anti-racist, regarding Washington's overseas military adventures as an abuse of the sovereign rights of other countries.
When Obama officials and US lawmakers flocked to Ukraine amid the Euromaidan unrest in 2013, Russell had no illusions about their true goals: "When the Maidan started and Victoria Nuland handing out cookies and John McCain and all that, and I knew what the deal was, I knew exactly what was going on," Bentley told Sputnik in April 2022, referring to a string of US overseas invasions and regime changes fomented by American policy-makers.
In 2014, he went to Donbass and joined the Vostok Battalion. Bentley said that he admired the courage and resilience of the region's residents, who did not bend to the illegitimate Ukrainian coup-makers, and called Donetsk his home.
He raised funds and provided humanitarian aid to the elderly, women, and children of the region. Together with Donbass volunteers, he fought in hot spots including Donetsk Airport, Spartak, Avdeyevka, and Yasinovataya.
Later, Bentley was baptized as an Orthodox Christian and given the name of Boris. In 2016, he married a native Donetsk resident, Lyudmila, an English-language teacher, who loved and supported him.
In 2021, Bentley was granted Russian citizenship. He began collaborating with Sputnik as a correspondent.
In his first article for Sputnik, published in October 2023, Bentley emphasized: "I did not come here to make money or to make a name for myself or to become an "Internet star." I came here to fight, to kill the neo-Nazis who were murdering innocent and unarmed Donbass civilians, to defend those civilians, and to stand beside the true Heroes who put their lives on the line to defend Donbass, Russia and the future of humanity. And that is what I have done."
His reports and interviews with volunteers and residents of Donbass resonated with the Western public, gaining a large number of views and comments on social media networks.
In mid-April, Bentley had gone missing in Donetsk. On April 19, Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Rossiya Segodnya, Sputnik's parent media group, announced that the 64-year-old had died. An investigation into the circumstances of Bentley's death was immediately launched by the Russian Investigative Committee.
"This is our military correspondent. The crime should be investigated; there is a principle of inevitability of punishment. Everyone is equal before the law," stated Dmitry Kiselev, general director of Sputnik's parent media group Rossiya Segodnya.