In November 2023, Russian and foreign social networks circulated a photo of an American journalist who allegedly “reincarnated as a Muslim” and is now focusing on the conflict in the Middle East instead of Ukraine. We checked the authenticity of the viral image.
Since November 6, a photo of the former speaker of the Territorial Defense Forces of Ukraine with a woman’s headscarf began to circulate on social networks (supposedthat this is a hijab). “The former official representative of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Sarah Ashton-Cirillo has reincarnated as a Muslim and now advocates peace in the Middle East. Sarah didn’t grieve for Ukraine for long,” it says in one of the most popular captions for the photo in the Russian Telegram channel “Uncle Slava"(211,000 views at the time of writing this analysis). Edition "Ukraine.ru” (124,000 views) clarified that this is “not a joke.” Authors of some publications think, that this behavior of Ashton-Cirillo demonstrates a change in trends in the agenda of Western countries.
Similar posts can be found in other Telegram channels, including “Putin on Telegram"(184,000), Voblya (163,000), "First People's" (127,000), "Ivan Utenkov"(114,000), "Scott Ritter on Telegram"(108,000), "What happened?"(94,000), "Federation"(82,000), "Special Operation Z"(76,000), "Yakov Kedmi"(73,000), "Bullet 18+"(63,000), "Russia now"(46,000), "Therapy" (37,000), "Coachman" (35,000), "New 🅉 Ukraine"(45,000), "Anton Elizarov | Leader Wagner"(31,000), Full-Time Trading (29,000), "Sergey Mikheev"(29,000), "Russia 2.0"(24,000), "Shark" (23,000) and "Russia"(21,000). In addition, the picture was published by VKontakte users (examples here, here, here And here), "Odnoklassniki" (here, here And here), social network X (formerly Twitter; here And here), TikTok, Facebook*, as well as some news sites.
Sarah Ashton-Cirillo is a transgender journalist from the United States, in early August 2023 which has become Speaker of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. However, on September 20, the press service of the Ukrainian army command reportedthat Ashton-Cirillo has been suspended from her position pending completion of her service investigations in connection with her latest statements, which weren't approved by military leadership. It was not specified what exactly statements were in question, but supposedwhat's the reason served her statements about one of the “Kremlin propagandists.”
The photo being circulated of Ashton-Cirillo in a hijab is not an independent image, but a screenshot of an alleged post of hers on a certain social network. Judging by the nickname, avatar and interface, this is the Threads microblogging service from Meta*. The screenshot also shows an English-language caption for the photo: “I stand for peace in the Middle East.” The journalist really has profile in Threads, but I didn’t find a similar “Verified” post there. The viral screenshot indicates that Ashton-Cirillo allegedly posted the photo 15 hours ago. Considering that reports about her alleged post began to diverge during the day November 6, then the entry should have appeared late in the evening of November 5. However, as of this writing, the latest content on Ashton-Cirillo's account is dated November 13 and July 2023.
In addition, the same screenshot of the post is being circulated online, and none of the publications we reviewed included a link to a specific post by Ashton-Cirillo. Accordingly, if the journalist’s post was deleted, then there are no saved versions in the web archives or it is not possible to find them.
The screenshot of the alleged post went viral not only in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet. Thus, in X you can find many relevant tweets in English (here, here, here And here), Portuguese and even Japanese language, often receiving tens of thousands of views and representing translations of Russian-language publications. One of these posts on German, which received almost 120,000 views, Ashton-Cirillo herself noted and retweeted with the caption: “This is the most ridiculous Russian propaganda.”
Our colleagues from the Ukrainian fact-checking project Gwara Media also identified an authentic photograph of an American journalist, which formed the basis of the photomontage. Real photo of Ashton-Cirillo published on his Instagram* back in November 2022. In the original, she wears different clothes and does not wear a hijab, but her facial expression, the highlights in her eyes and the shadow under her nose match those seen in the viral photo.
Let us note that at the same time our colleagues from Gwara Media And "No nonsense» incorrectly identified the site where Ashton-Cirillo's fake post was allegedly published. Ukrainian fact checkers in their refutations stated that the viral screenshot shows a post on the social network X (formerly Twitter), and not on Threads, as we wrote above. In this regard, a couple of arguments in their analyzes seem incorrect.
“Verified” suggests that the likely primary source of the fake is the Russian-language Telegram channel “Communications center” (55,000 views), where a fabricated screenshot of Ashton-Cirillo’s post appeared on November 6 at 13:01 Moscow time. At least we could not find earlier publications either by keywords or through an image search. “Communication Hub” several times already featured in our analyzes of various types of misinformation. Moreover, according to our data, once this channel has already stood at the origins of the spread of another anti-Ukrainian fake.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: social networks
- Is it true that in Germany a child was taken away from a Muslim family for rejecting “LGBT values”?
- Is it true that Islam has been banned in Japan and the rights of Muslims are being infringed upon?
- Is it true that Leo Tolstoy converted to Islam?
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