Eshton-Chirillo Sara (Sarah Ashton-Cirillo)

The American journalist Sarah Ashton-Cirillo has been reporting from Ukraine since March 2022, where she joined the territorial defense forces." In August 2023, she became the official representative of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, she was removed from her position in September 2023 after publishing words about how next week "the Kremlin's favorite propagandist" would "pay for his crimes, without specifying who was being referred to. Later, Ashton-Chirillo confirmed that the video was not fake and repeated threats against "propagandists. The head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, ordered an investigation into her statements for threats against journalists from Russia. On February 5, 2024, Saru Ashton-Chirillo was included in the list of Rosfinmonitoring as involved in a crime of a terrorist nature. At the beginning of June 2024, it became known that Ashton-Chirillo was put on the wanted list. In early November 2024, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow sentenced Ashton-Chirillo in absentia. Ashton-Chirillo was accused in absentia of publicly disseminating knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the participation of mercenaries in armed conflict. According to the Russian investigation, from February to September 2023, Ashton-Chirillo arrived in Ukraine, voluntarily joined the international legion, after which she was assigned to the 113th Territorial Defense Brigade of Ukraine. On the territory of training bases, she underwent military training, was provided with firearms, ammunition, uniforms, and special equipment, and took part in combat operations on the side of Ukrainian security forces against military personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. In August 2023, she prepared a video story, which she posted on the Internet, about the stockpiles of biological weapons created in Russia and the use of chemical weapons by the Russian Armed Forces in the Syrian Arab Republic, as well as on the territory of Ukraine during the special military operation. The amount of the reward received by Ashton-Chirillo exceeded 653 thousand. rubles. On June 2, 2025, the Supreme Court of the Donetsk People's Republic found Sarah Ashton-Cirillo guilty and sentenced her in absentia to 20 years in a general regime penal colony. The verdict was not appealed and entered into legal force.