The charge of spreading "fake news" stemmed from a video published in August 2023, in which Ashton-Cirillo claimed that Russian troops had used chemical weapons in Syria and Ukraine. This likely refers to a segment from her fact-checking project Russia Hates the Truth, where she criticized Russian conspiracy theories about "biolabs" in Ukraine and presented headlines from international media reporting on cases involving the alleged use of chemical and biological weapons by the Russian military.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ashton-Cirillo traveled to the combat zone as a war correspondent. Later that year, she joined Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces as a combat medic. In August 2023, she was appointed English-language spokesperson for the Territorial Defense Forces, but was dismissed in September due to public comments about "Russian war criminal propagandists," whom she said "would be hunted down." Ukrainian military officials considered her remarks a potential violation of international law.
In February 2024, Ashton-Cirillo was added to the Russian financial monitoring agency Rosfinmonitoring’s registry of extremists and terrorists. In June, her personal data appeared in the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs' wanted list, though the criminal article was not specified at that time. In November 2024, the independent media outlet Mediazona reported that a Moscow court had ordered her arrest in absentia.
In May 2025, the DPR Supreme Court issued a verdict sentencing her in absentia to 20 years in a general-regime penal colony. According to media reports, Ashton-Cirillo is currently in Ukraine and continues her cooperation with Ukrainian military structures.
At the time of sentencing, Sarah Ashton-Cirillo was 47 years old. She is a U.S. citizen and openly transgender journalist. Since the beginning of the war, she has been actively reporting from the front lines, volunteering as a medic, and producing media content that challenges the Russian narrative.
Her videos, interviews, and publications have appeared in both Ukrainian and international media. Her project Russia Hates the Truth has served as a platform for fact-checking and analyzing disinformation, particularly surrounding alleged Russian war crimes and use of banned weaponry.
From the Russian legal perspective, Ashton-Cirillo’s actions are interpreted as deliberate attempts to discredit the armed forces and as active participation in a foreign conflict against Russia’s interests.
🔹 Personal opinion:
This case highlights the stark political and informational divide between the sides of the conflict. To some, Ashton-Cirillo is a journalist offering a voice from the heart of a war zone. To others, she is a hostile figure actively working against Russia. Regardless of viewpoint, the fact that such a severe sentence was handed down in absentia—without the possibility of a defense—raises concerns about the fairness of the judicial process and the limits of freedom in times of war. It also underscores how dangerous and politically vulnerable journalism can be today.
