Russell Bentley, 64, reported killed in Moscow-occupied Donetsk by Russian state media and confirmed by his battalion
A US citizen known to have fought with pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine between 2014 and 2017 has been killed in Moscow-occupied Donetsk, according to Russian media reports.
Russia-installed authorities in eastern Ukraine had earlier this month reported the American – 64-year-old Russell Bentley – as missing.
“Russell Bentley, known as ‘Texas’, a real American, truly from Texas, was killed in Donetsk,” Margarita Simonyan, head of the pro-Kremlin RT TV channel, said on social media.
I guess you haven’t seen all of the news reports and government outcry over Russia basically luring these guys to Russia then kidnapping Indian and Nepalese dudes and forcing them to fight, same with North Koreans, a whole bunch of South Americans, and several other Americans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_fighters_in_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War#Russian_side
I’ve heard they use a mercenary type army, nothing would surprise me.
Mercenaries fight for money, these kidnappings and enslavements, along with the Russian conscription process in particular, are more along the lines of a slave army, since it’s absolutely not voluntary for many of those people.
Wagner are the mercenaries they use:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group
Senior Russian soldiers basically rape and murder new conscripts as a training method:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedovshchina