Russell Bentley, the so-called "Donbass Cowboy" from Texas who fought for the 'Donetsk People's Republic' (DPR), is reported to have been tortured to death in an abandoned mine being used as a concentration camp for 'remotivating' Russian soldiers who refuse to fight. On 8 April 2024, Bentley was kidnapped by DPR soldiers outside the administration building of the Petrovsky district of Donetsk. He was driven away in an unknown direction. On 19 April, his former unit, the Vostok Battalion, confirmed his death. His body has not been found. ASTRA reports that he was electrocuted during torture by men from the DPR's 5th Motorised Rifle Brigade, in the abandoned Petrovskogo mine. The Russian security services use the Soviet TA-57 field telephone as a torture device, using a hand crank to generate up to 80V.
This was recently demonstrated in leaked pictures showing one of the attackers in the March 2024 Crocus City Hall attack being tortured (probably by the FSB) using a TA-57 attached to his genitals. It's likely that Bentley was given similar treatment and died as a result. According to former DPR soldiers and their relatives, the 5th Brigade has been using the mine as a torture facility for Russian and DPR soldiers who refuse to fight, as well as Ukrainian POWs. Opened in 1903, it was closed in 2014 when Russia seized Donetsk.
Captives are reportedly taken to the mine to be imprisoned in zindans – open-air pits secured by a grating. According to men who have been imprisoned there, commanders and their subordinates seek to 'remotivate' their men by urinating on them and beating them.
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Now that you mention it... anyone seen that vatnik nottyboi?
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