Pro-Putin Texas fighter, 63, goes missing in Russian-controlled Donetsk 'after rushing to scene of Ukrainian attack' in war-torn city

An American who fought for pro-Putin forces in Ukraine has gone missing, say police in Russian-controlled Donetsk.

Russell Bentley, 63, who is married to a Russian woman and has a passport from his adopted country, disappeared after an attack by Kyiv forces, according to reports.

He was last seen in Donetsk on 8 April before moving in an 'unknown direction', and his whereabouts are unclear.

He had gone to help victims, say reports.

Call sign 'Texas', his height is given as almost 6ft, and he is described as having a 'heavy build, grey eyes, short grey hair, [and an] oval face'.

'He was wearing a black T-shirt, moss camouflage pants, camouflage boots, and had a green bag with him,' said an appeal for information.

Anti-Western Bentley has 'a tattoo in the form of an arrow on his shoulder'.

Russell Bentley, an American who fought against Ukrainian forces, is missing in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, police there said on Friday

Bentley went missing on April 8, they said. Local reports said he had disappeared after a district in the city of Donetsk was shelled by Ukrainian forces

Reports cited his wife as saying he had gone to see if anyone needed help but had not returned. She was quoted as saying she had found his car with his baseball cap in it along with his smashed mobile phone and a pair of glasses

The controversial figure, born in Texas, was waiting with his wife Lyudmila at an administrative office in Donetsk when 'they saw a huge column of smoke after a strike.

'Russell rushed to help the locals and soon stopped communicating.'

His wife Lyudmila 'became worried and went to the place herself' but she failed to locate the former pot dealer.

Born Russell Bonner Bentley III, he has previously said: 'I grew up in a very exclusive area of Dallas called Highland Park…

'It's basically the Beverly Hills of Dallas.'

He was the 'black sheep' of his family and - as a teenager - was drawn to hard left causes, he said.

'I was reading Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara' he said.

'I understood the Vietnamese were right to defend their land against foreign invaders, and that the United States was wrong,' he once told Rolling Stone in a 2022 interview titled 'The Bizarre Story of How a Hardcore Texas Leftist Became a Frontline Putin propagandist.'

'I understood that Fidel and Che were right to overthrow the foreign masters that had turned Cuba into a casino and bordello.'

Bentley has said: 'I'm anti-racist. I'm anti-imperialist.

'I grew up supporting people's rights to defend themselves.'

His views neatly coincide with Putin's.

Bentley, 64, is a self-declared supporter of Russian-backed forces in Ukraine. He joined pro-Russian fighters in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and used the military call-sign Texas

In 2022, Rolling Stone magazine ran an interview with Bentley titled The Bizarre Story of How a Hardcore Texas Leftist Became a Frontline Putin propagandist

Bentley has posted that he was 'heading west with the Liberators of Ukraine. We may stop in Kiev, we may stop on the English Channel.

'We may liberate the USA.'

A visitor to Cuba, in 1999 he escaped from a minimum security US facility where he was being held for drug trafficking.

'I didn't have to dig a tunnel or take anybody hostage,' he said.

'But I did escape from prison.'

He was later captured and put in a high security facility to finish his sentence.

He became a fighter for pro-Putin forces in 2014 after breaking up with his yoga-instructor girlfriend, though he spoke almost no Russian.

He sympathised with the Russian rather than Ukrainian side.

'I was on the little guys' side, defending good people against abjectly evil people,' he said.

He has lived in Donbas - Russian-occupied Ukraine - ever since.

He now calls himself an information warrior and had worked for a media outlet affiliated with Sputnik, a Russian state media outlet.

He converted to Orthodox Christianity and had a church wedding with his wife Lyudmila, an English language teacher.

He took the Russian name Boris, says reports.

Bentley told Rolling Stone: 'This is the battle, not just of Ukraine.

'This is the battle between good-and-evil for the future of the world.

'And right now, it's looking like the world might just have a chance because us and our friends are kicking some Nazi ass right now.'