A former transgender American journalist who enlisted in the Ukrainian army has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in a harsh Russian penal colony.
The Supreme Court set up by Moscow in the occupied Donetsk region sentenced in absentia 47-year-old Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, a former Los Angeles-based reporter originally from Florida who had joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces three years ago.
She was found guilty of spreading false information about the Russian Armed Forces and participating as a mercenary in an armed conflict. Ashton-Cirillo, who has traveled to the United States several times on behalf of the Ukrainian Defense Minister, was labeled a terrorist by Russia last year.
In a 2024 interview with the Washington Blade, she had stated: “For Russia to name me as an officially sanctioned terrorist is laughable enough, however, what was truly indicative of the hate coming from the Kremlin’s regime was that every press release and article in Russia about my being placed on Putin’s terrorism list was prefaced with the fact that I am trans.”
In August 2023, Ashton-Cirillo made and shared online a video in which she claimed that Russia was stockpiling biological weapons. She also spoke about Moscow’s use of chemical weapons in Syria and Ukraine.
“From the first day when I entered, when I had my passport stamped, I found Ukraine to be welcoming in a very unique way”, she told Voice of America in 2023, “It’s not a question of tolerance and it’s not a question of identity. What it is is that Ukraine is a nation that appreciates liberty and freedom for all people”.
JD Vance, the current vice president who was at the time a senator, became involved in the controversy in August 2023, when he sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. In his letter, Vance questioned Ashton-Cirillo’s role in Ukraine, asking whether she was employed by the Ukrainian military and if she was being compensated using American resources.
He also accused Ashton-Cirillo of threatening “physical violence against anyone who spreads Russian propaganda” and questioned the journalist’s U.S. citizenship.
