U.S. veteran who drew significant media attention for saying he had volunteered alongside international forces in Ukraine has been accused of misrepresenting himself.
James Vasquez, a former U.S. soldier who routinely uploaded wartime footage to his hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter, shared videos appearing to show him facing off against Russian forces in Ukraine.
Newsweek was among media that had published articles citing Vasquez’s tweets.
On Wednesday, Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, an American journalist who enlisted to fight in Ukraine’s armed forces, disputed Vasquez’s accounts of combat in the war-torn country.
Newsweek has reached out to Vasquez for comment via LinkedIn message.
Writing on Twitter, she said Vasquez “is not and has not been” in Ukraine’s armed forces. She provided a link to Vasquez’s Twitter account—where he had previously posted war-related content—which has been deleted as of Thursday morning.
In a series of posts, Ashton-Cirillo said she had “stayed out of it while other soldiers, real soldiers, called him out” to avoid “controversy.”
She said she had met Vasquez three times, during each of which he was a “civilian.”
“It was shocking to see him say he was going on a mission to Soledar after we already left,” she wrote. Soledar, a town in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, was the site of heavy fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces earlier this year before Kyiv’s fighters pulled back to preserve the lives of its personnel, a Ukrainian military spokesperson said at the time.
In a separate post, also uploaded on Wednesday, Ashton-Cirillo said she had privately communicated with Vasquez, and that he “confirmed to me in writing that he does not and has not had a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
Vasquez has appeared several times in international media since the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022.
Vasquez’s wife, Tina, previously told the Daily Mail in March 2022 that she was “super proud of my husband, he’s my hero and he’s met a lot of great people over in Ukraine.”
In an interview with local outlet News 12 Connecticut in September 2022, Vasquez said he was in Ukraine for a second stint, speaking from a command post in eastern Ukraine.
He became visibly emotional in the interview as he discussed his time in the country.
US Vet James Vasquez who allegedly fought in Ukraine calls out a Random dude on the Subway and catches the Fists of Fury… pic.twitter.com/tV8MbwxHkt
— Fight Haven (@FightHaven) March 26, 2023