EDITOR’S NOTE: PREVIOUSLY THIS POST WAS ERRONEOUSLY ATTRIBUTED TO JOAQUIN FLORES, editor of Fort Russ, instead of Russsell Bentley, the actual author, who contributes to Fort Russ. We apologise for this mistake.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  Russell Bonner Bentley ("Texac") was born in the United States and is now an “Information Warrior” for the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), which declared its independence from Ukraine in 2014. This former U.S. soldier went there to fight against fascism in Ukraine and around the world. Back in the 1990s when he was in the states, Bentley spent much of his adult life fighting for justice, including the struggle to free U.S. political prisoners Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal, both of whom he called “great men and true American heroes.” Although he describes himself as a poet by nature, Bentley left the U.S. in 2014 to join the Essence of Time (EOT) unit in the newly independent Donetsk, which was being attacked by the Ukrainian army, including many openly fascist units. Bentley served as a rifleman and RPG gunner on the frontlines at the Donetsk airport and the village of Spartak.