A court in Russian-controlled Ukraine sentenced four Russian soldiers to jail on Monday for the killing of an American communist who had fought with pro-Moscow forces since 2014.

Moscow rarely punishes its soldiers in Ukraine for committing crimes, portraying them as national heroes at home.

The court in Russian-held Donetsk found the soldiers guilty of beating Russell Bentley, 64, to death in April 2024, after they mistook him for a U.S. spy. The soldiers put his body in the back of a car and blew it up, the court said.

Bentley — the subject of a 2022 interview with Rolling Stone magazine titled "The Bizarre Story of How a Hardcore Texas Leftist Became a Frontline Putin propagandist" — was a local celebrity in the city of Donetsk, where he lived, and his disappearance sparked out

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