A transgender American woman serving in the Ukrainian army opened up about her unique experience in a revealing interview over the weekend – weeks after sustaining a permanent injury from a Russian artillery strike.
US journalist and war correspondent Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, 45, described how she fought the Kremlin for more than a year as guest of honor at Yankee Stadium on Saturday – when she was briefly in the States United for his son’s graduation.
The New York native joined Zelensky’s war effort shortly after debuting last year and has since spent her time sleeping in the trenches of the war-torn nation, befriending other service members and transporting vital supplies along the way.
Already witnessing countless casualties, Ashton-Cirillo got a taste of action in February, shortly after being transferred to the front line at her own request as part of a combat unit.
It put a gun in her hands, but also put her in the way of a wayward artillery shell in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine on February 23. Hit in the head and right hand, she was hospitalized for 16 days and immediately returned to the front.
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American journalist and war correspondent Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, 45, described how she fought the Kremlin for more than a year on Saturday
A transgender woman serving in the Ukrainian military, she opened up about her unique experience in a revealing interview over the weekend – weeks after sustaining a permanent injury from a Russian artillery strike
Speaking to the New York Post from a private box at the ballpark on Saturday — as a guest of team president Randy Levine’s wife — Ashton-Cirillo described what it’s like to be a full member of the Ukrainian Armed Forces – and how she came on Moscow’s radar in the aftermath.
“No foreigner has spent more time in the Russian border area than I have,” said Ashton-Cirillo, who traded her war correspondent title for the progressive publication LGBTQ Nation to fight the specialist on Jan. 31.
“With my experience working as a civilian for them – and I was doing a lot of analysis – and it made sense.
“The decision has been made that I enlist.”
Appearing as a guest of the Yankees Universal Fund for Pediatric Cancer Research, Ashton-Cirillo said within days she found herself immersed in the fighting – and soon saw her face glued to the television of Russian state.
“I transferred on January 31 and on February 2 I was fighting,” she said, telling her unique story which she has also documented in depth on social media.
“Russians put me on Russian TV all the time,” she added. “They always focus on calling me ‘it’.
Now a junior sergeant in the 209th Battalion of the 113th Brigade, she is set to return to war this month, after a 12-day visit to the United States which will also see her speak to politicians in Washington.
Initially a freelancer without a combat helmet or even a gun, Ashton-Cirillo said she decided to take up arms after witnessing bombings and rocket attacks killing civilians in cities like Kharkiv and Zolochiv, deep in the war zone.
The night attack damaged the nerves and muscles in his right hand and left a hole in his cheek and lip. She also said the close call was a wake-up call – a call she had not been subjected to in her previous 11 months in the country as a freelance war reporter.
She’s since shared photos, videos and real-time dispatches of cratered buildings and dystopian landscapes, holed up in the litany of bomb shelters and man-made pits that litter the countryside.
She described seeing combat for the first time in February after her unit was hit by Russian shell fire while stationed on the front lines in the Donbass region in eastern Israel. ‘Ukraine.
The night attack damaged the nerves and muscles in his right hand and left a hole in his cheek and lip. She also said the close call was a rude awakening – one she had not been subjected to in her previous 11 months in the country.
Just over two weeks away – at her own request – she was back on the frontlines, but not after taking to Twitter to declare her toughness on the Ukraine cause, as explosions can be heard in the distance.
“I was touched this morning,” she wrote in a caption accompanying a video showing a fellow soldier bandaging her hand. “My injuries are permanent. I lost part of my hand and I have scars on my face.
“They can’t kill us,” she added, as bombs exploded in the background. “They can’t hurt us. Victory is ours. It does not matter. For what? Because we are Ukraine,’
She continued to taunt the Russian president, who days earlier had promised a Kremlin victory – while potentially sparing outspoken opponent Zelensky.
“Putin is going to be the only one dead,” Ashton-Cirillo said in a clip that has since had 6.5 million views.
“And that’s the small price of liberation and freedom,” says the former freelancer, before offering a “Slava Ukraini!” lively. – which translates into English as “Glory to Ukraine”.
Despite her different backgrounds, Ashton-Cirillo says other soldiers fighting against the occupation have welcomed her with open arms – telling the Post on Saturday that she has not faced any harassment or backlash since she enlisted.
“This is freedom,” the upstate New York woman told the publication. “It doesn’t matter that I’m a trans person, it doesn’t matter. I’m a soldier first, a human second, and everything else comes after.
She has since signed a three-year contract with the Ukrainian armed forces to keep fighting and hopes that by returning to the country later this month she can help them win a transformative victory against their Russian aggressors.
She recently admitted to USA Today, “If I knew now what I knew nine months ago, I’m not sure I would have chosen this path.
“But because I’ve chosen this path, the only way forward is to focus on the mission, to focus on my beliefs and values as to why I’m doing this.”
She’s set to return to the frontlines next week — but before that, she’ll attend her son’s graduation and chat with politicians on Capitol Hill.
Until then, she maintains that, despite what the Kremlin might say, she is just as important to Ukraine’s war effort as the nation’s nearly 200,000 other freedom fighters.
“It wasn’t a big deal that I was a trans soldier and I was in Ukraine,” she told the newspaper in January. “That turned out to be the easiest part of my time there. You are judged on your character, you are judged on your courage, and you are judged on your belief in freedom and your loyalty to Ukraine.
‘Nothing else matters.’