1/ 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. ⬇️ 
2/ 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.
3/ 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.
4/ 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.
5/ 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.
6/ 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.
7/ A former 5th Brigade soldier and deputy platoon commander, Daniil, says that "they bring soldiers there with bags over their heads. They don't feed them. If you want to go to the toilet, they give you a bag and you go [in it]."
8/ "When they locked me up, they hung us up by the arms and legs from the ceiling with chains."
He says that he and his subordinates were imprisoned there for refusing to take part in an assault. The 'refuseniks' were tortured and murdered:
He says that he and his subordinates were imprisoned there for refusing to take part in an assault. The 'refuseniks' were tortured and murdered:
9/ "They practically killed all my boys there. They cut one down, shot the other in the face. ... I'll just tell you what everyone says here. Killing here in Donetsk is the norm, you know?"
10/ "And wherever people write, cursing and the like, you know, what kind of answers do they get? My ex, when she came to the Donetsk military prosecutor's office and started telling them about this lawlessness.
11/ "They called her to the head of the prosecutor's office and said: 'If you want to live, shut your mouth.'"
Daniil is now missing after speaking to ASTRA. He has reportedly been taken into custody by the military commandant.
Daniil is now missing after speaking to ASTRA. He has reportedly been taken into custody by the military commandant.
12/ Men from the DPR's 110th Guards Motorised Rifle Brigade are also reported to have been tortured at the mine. An official complaint describes what happened to a soldier from the brigade, called Alexander:
13/ "At the end of December, he was seriously wounded. A torn elbow joint. He was in the hospital. On the third day after his operation, soldiers from the unit came to the hospital with weapons, took away his salary card, and threatened that if Alexander did not…
14/ …return to the unit, they would shoot him. The command tortured Alexander in order to force him to take part in military operations. A soldier with the call sign Chip hung him up by his handcuffs and stabbed him in the arm with a knife."
15/ "This was done after Alexander tried to call his wife to tell her about himself. His further fate is unknown."
16/ Another man, Vladimir Frolov, was ordered to go back to the front lines despite suffering a severe wound, a kidney tumour, astigmatism and needing crutches to walk. He was arrested in March 2024 and sent to the Petrovskaya mine for 'remotivation'.
17/ His situation was not unusual. According to another 5th Brigade soldier, Andrey, "the wounded with category "D" [commanders] take away crutches and send them to storm the battlefield. You can only leave the 5th Brigade feet first." This was indeed Frolov's fate.
18/ His body was sent back to his family in April in such bad condition that they were not allowed to see it. His wife Anna says: "They simply tortured him. They killed him and then came to his funeral. Our own are worse than strangers. They won't get into trouble for this."
19/ The murder of Russell Bentley may be an exception; the wide publicity it caused after a campaign by his widow led to the arrest of Andrey Iordan, commander of the 5th Brigade's tank company, and his subordinates Vladimir Bazhin and Vladislav Agaltsev.
20/ Relatives of other victims, however, say that justice is being systematically denied by the 121st Military Investigative Department (121st VSO) of the Investigative Committee, which is refusing to do anything about complaints.
21/ According to Elena Popova, coordinator of the "Movement of Conscientious Objectors", the 121st VSO has "entered into a criminal conspiracy with the command of individual military units with the aim of sending citizens suspected of leaving their units without permission to…
22/ …the war zone and on this basis to terminate criminal cases. At the same time, the 121st VSO covers up the violent actions by which the command of military units tries to obtain the consent of servicemen to go to the front lines." /end
Source:
astra.press/russian/2024/0…
Source:
astra.press/russian/2024/0…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
