American journalist, activist and soldier (born 1977)
Sarah Ashton-Cirillo (born 9 July 1977), formerly Sarah Cirillo and Sarah Ashton, is an American former journalist who has worked as a spokesperson for Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, in which she is a junior sergeant. A self-described "recovering political operative" from Las Vegas, Nevada, she was active in Nevada politics from 2020 to 2021, including an abortive run for Las Vegas City Council. She arrived in Ukraine in March 2022, shortly after the full-scale Russian invasion, and has variously served as a war correspondent, a representative in aid negotiations, a civilian analyst with the Ministry of Defense, and a combat medic.
Ashton-Cirillo drew national media attention in 2021 when she released records of conversations from her time working with Republican candidates, documenting efforts to recruit members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group, for a planned "Brooks Brothers Riot" (alluding to the 2000 demonstration) as part of efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 United States presidential election. In 2022, she leaked a text exchange with the Republican nominee for Nevada Attorney General, which became a key controversy in that election.
Starting in March 2022, Ashton-Cirillo reported on the Russian invasion of Ukraine from Kharkiv, Ukraine, primarily for "LGBTQ Nation", often writing about the war's effect on LGBTQ people. A trans woman, she is thought to have been the first openly transgender war correspondent and the only transgender journalist covering the invasion. In Kharkiv, she worked closely with the Ukrainian military and police, and was appointed by the mayor of Zolochiv, Kharkiv Oblast, as a representative to advocate with aid groups. After witnessing and reporting on the October 2022 Kyiv missile strikes—including posting a controversial widely shared video that showed a dead body—she resigned from "LGBTQ Nation" to become a combat medic in Ukraine's Noman Çelebicihan Battalion, a Crimean Tatar unit. In February 2023, she was wounded by Russian shelling while serving on the front lines in the Donbas with the 209th Battalion of the 113th Kharkiv Defense Brigade. She was subsequently assigned to the Territorial Defense Forces, and became one of its English-language spokespeople in early August 2023; she was suspended in late September pending investigation of unspecified unapproved statements.
Early life, Syrian refugee crisis, and gender transition (1977–2019).
Ashton-Cirillo was born on 9 July 1977 in North Florida; she previously had the surname "Cirillo". According to her byline with "The Nevada Independent", she has lived in Las Vegas since 2004; according to the "Nevada Current" she "established residency [there] in 2016 to be closer to" her ex-wife and child. In this phase of her life, she worked as a real estate analyst, a poker player, and the communications director at a healthcare company.
In 2015, before her gender transition, Ashton-Cirillo went to Syrian refugee camps in Turkey to report on the refugee crisis, having been afraid to enter Syria itself. She wrote a book about the experience, "Along the Tracks of Tears", but was unhappy with its quality, having been preoccupied with concerns about whether the people she traveled with would have accepted her if they knew she was a trans woman.
Ashton-Cirillo started taking feminizing hormones "on and off" in 2018, before deciding to transition in May 2019 after what she described as a "35-year wait to embrace myself". She later said that she would have died if she had not transitioned. Her transition has included gender-affirming surgery and hair regrowth. She was writing "Fair. Right. Just." as she was coming to terms with her gender identity, and rushed to finish it for fear that she would kill herself. After beginning her transition, she removed both the novel and "Along the Tracks of Tears" from circulation, explaining:I realized in hindsight that I hated myself and wasn't true to myself as a writer. A lot of what was going through my mind, especially in the refugee book, was, "What would these people say if I was trans? What would they do?" I felt like a liar because I wasn't living authentically.
Nevada politics.
Ashton-Cirillo described herself as a progressive activist and leftist libertarian when she was active in Nevada politics, and has since referred to herself as a "recovering political operative"; she has been described in "The Washington Post" and "The Nevada Independent" as a liberal activist and in the "Las Vegas Review-Journal" as "unapologetically left-leaning". She was a registered member of the Democratic Party as of  2022[ [update]].
Nevada Republican Party and Proud Boys (2020–2021).
In September 2020, Ashton-Cirillo began working as an opposition research operative with Republican candidates in Nevada under the name "Sarah Cirillo". She later told the "Post" and "Nevada Current" that her initial purpose in switching parties was to conduct research for her book on extremism and help her friend, Nadia Krall, get elected to a local judgeship as a Republican. According to "The Daily Beast", Ashton-Cirillo convinced Krall to change her party affiliation from Democratic to Republican in order to pick up endorsements from Ashton-Cirillo's high-profile Republican contacts. Taking on a hard-right, Trumpist persona, Ashton-Cirillo developed ties with Nevada Republicans by attending and hosting rallies organized by prominent party figures. She commented to the "Post" that her record as a liberal activist was available on the internet, and told the "Beast" that "these guys were too stupid to look into my progressive politics, because they were so eager to tokenize me". She was open about her transgender status. Some were indifferent to it, while Republican attorney Sigal Chattah saw it as a positive and referred to Ashton-Cirillo as a "unicorn".
Following the 2020 presidential election, Ashton-Cirillo became involved with efforts to bring members of the Proud Boys—a far-right, men-only group that would later play a role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol—to a rally in front of the Clark County election department, part of nationwide efforts to overturn Joe Biden's victory. The day after the election, Ashton-Cirillo received a message from the vice president of McShane LLC, a firm hired by the Republican Party to investigate electoral fraud. In the message, given to the "Post" in 2021, the McShane vice president said that Republican Congressman Paul Gosar was planning a "Brooks Brothers Riot" in Arizona—referencing the 2000 demonstration by Republican staffers that contributed to George W. Bush's victory—and that Ashton-Cirillo should start planning something similar in Nevada; the McShane vice president said that they should "get the Proud Boys out". This led Ashton-Cirillo to contact a group of far-right activists, at least one of whom was a member of the Proud Boys. The proportion of those wearing Proud Boy colors in the crowd was relatively small, and the protest remained peaceful. Gosar denies having discussed any protests with the McShane vice president.
The Clark County Republican Party subsequently banned seven people from participating in Republican county affairs, citing racist and anti-Semitic texts disclosed to them by Ashton-Cirillo. One of those banned was a Proud Boy who Ashton-Cirillo had contacted when recruiting for the Clark County rally.
Blundo defense and Las Vegas City Council run (2021).
In early 2021, Ashton-Cirillo worked to coordinate the defense of Leo Blundo, a Republican Nye County official accused of unlawfully voting to give his own business CARES Act funds. Blundo denounced the accusations as "deep state, swamp behavior" and Ashton-Cirillo hailed him at a press conference as "an innocent man", to applause from the crowd. The Nevada attorney general's office declined to bring charges against Blundo.
By the spring of 2021, Ashton-Cirillo decided to run for Las Vegas City Council as a Democrat under the name "Sarah Ashton" (having changed her name to "Sarah Ashton-Cirillo" that March). She initially intended to run in the second ward against the Republican incumbent, Victoria Seaman. In June, she switched her candidacy to the sixth ward, challenging Michele Fiore, also a Republican. Ashton-Cirillo told the "Current" that she had provided the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with "copious amounts" of correspondence between her and Fiore, as part of an ongoing FBI probe into Fiore's campaign finance spending.
Ashton-Cirillo withdrew from the race in October, saying she wished to focus on a political news portal she had created, "Political.tips".
"Political.tips" and Chattah texts controversy (2022).
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Chattah: ;q ;Do you know that Aaron ford opposed ESA and converting schools in low income areas to charter schools ;/q ;Ashton-Cirillo: ;q ;Yes imaginary issues for an imaginary administration ;/q ;Chattah: ;q ;This guy should be hanging from a fucking crane ;/q ;Ashton-Cirillo: ;q ;And fictional media ;/q ;Chattah: ;q ;He doesn't give a fuck about advancing opportunities in underserved communities.He's a bigger piece of shit than I imaginedIt's so shamefulHe's like the leader of Hamas—making tons of money while the People in Gaza are starving ;/q ;
Ashton-Cirillo, "As Nevada LEO Hack Exposes 'Pretty' Eric Garner Killing; Chattah Text Calls for Ford Hanging. More"
Through "Political.tips", Ashton-Cirillo reported on Nevada-related aspects of BlueLeaks, a set of law enforcement data released by Distributed Denial of Secrets in June 2020. In an article related to BlueLeaks, Ashton-Cirillo leaked texts with her former friend, Sigal Chattah, then a Republican candidate for Nevada Attorney General. In the leaked exchange, Chattah compared incumbent Aaron D. Ford to the leader of Hamas and said he "should be hanging from a fucking crane". Ford is Black, and some saw the remark as racist; Ford refused to debate Chattah, saying "she doesn't respect my dignity as a human". Ashton-Cirillo said that she does not think Chattah is racist nor intended to allude to Ford's race, and that her goal in releasing the texts had been to criticize Chattah's temperament. Ford ultimately won re-election; "HuffPost" highlighted the leaked texts as a major controversy in the race.
Invasion of Ukraine.
Ashton-Cirillo said that she began to "hate Russia" after visiting museums in the Baltic States while she was writing a novel, "Fair. Right. Just.", which she self-published in 2017. When Russia invaded Ukraine in full in February 2022, she traveled to Ukraine with plans to write a book on both the resulting refugee crisis and her previous experience with the Syrian refugee crisis.
Journalism and activism (March–August 2022).
Ashton-Cirillo arrived in Ukraine through Poland on 4 March 2022. Having transitioned since her time in Syria, she was initially hesitant to enter the country based on things she had heard about LGBT rights in Ukraine. Ukrainian border authorities made her remove her wig when they reviewed her travel documents. While her Nevada driver's license reflects her changed name and gender identity as a woman, her U.S. passport does not, and as a result, she was issued a press credential that refers to her primarily by her current name but notes her former name as well. Ashton-Cirillo said she understood both decisions; regarding the latter, she told the "Washington Blade", "I was okay with it because I couldn't believe they credentialed me anyway with the situation being the way it was." After entering the country she went to Lviv, and from there, wanting to be closer to the front lines, to Ivano-Frankivsk. There, two men invited her to come to Kharkiv, saying other journalists were fleeing the city because it was too dangerous. At the time she did not have a combat helmet, chest protector, or plates to indicate herself as a member of the press.
Ashton-Cirillo settled in Kharkiv, renting an apartment in North Saltivka—one of the more heavily bombed parts of the city. This differed from the practice of most foreign journalists, who made trips in and out of the region, some staying at Ashton-Cirillo's apartment. Starting shortly after she arrived in Kharkiv, Ashton-Cirillo reported for "LGBTQ Nation" on the impact of the war on LGBTQ people, initially as a freelancer. Her work included interviews with gay men fighting in Ukraine, reporting on the challenges faced by LGBTQ Ukrainians trying to leave the country after men of fighting age were prohibited from leaving, and documentation of Russian war crimes against LGBTQ people. She also reported on the war on Twitter and in a serialized book titled "Trans at the Front", published over Substack. She appeared on the BBC's "Ukrainecast" in June to discuss the Russian army's use of castration to terrorize Ukraine's population.
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 Incredible news from Kharkiv! 
Reports are that Chilean Russian spy [Tag] has been captured in #Kharkiv (Kharkov).
He is (allegedly) a Russian saboteur posing as a "journalist", to destroy #Ukraine️.
Congrats to Ukrainian security services.