James Vasquez. Twitter/@ShehabBawazeer2.
Kyiv: James Vasquez, a US veteran, who drew large media attention for saying he had volunteered alongside international forces in Ukraine has been accused of being fake. The army veteran, who fundraised thousands of pounds in donations for the Ukraine war effort was recently ‘exposed as fraud’ as per media reports.
James Vasquez, a fraud?
As per a report in Daily Star, the 47-year-old former US Army staff sergeant went to Ukraine twice to fight against Vladimir Putin’s forces on the front line. One of these times were after his wife left him.
The former US soldier would routinely upload wartime footage on Twitter, where he would be shown facing off against Russian forces in Ukraine.
Now, an American Journalist, Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, who had enlisted to fight in Ukraine’s armed forces, disputed Vasquez’s accounts of fighting in the war-torn country. On March 23, she had tweeted, “In the summer I warned the mainstream media about his stolen valor and fraud. They ignored & gaslighted me. It took having my own platform to break through the lies & be heard.”
Since then, she has posted multiple tweets allegedly showing how James has been lying about his war efforts in Ukraine.
In a series of tweets Sarah revealed she had originally stayed out of it while other “real soldiers” called him out to avoid controversy and that she had met James thrice, and he was a ‘civilian’.
In a separate post, also uploaded on Wednesday, Ashton-Cirillo claimed to have privately communicated with Vasquez, where he “confirmed to me in writing that he does not and has not had a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
As per the report, James originally arrived in Ukraine in April 2022, before returning again recently, effectively live-tweeting the conflict on his personal account. Subsequently, Vasquez, who is still reportedly in Bakhmut and crowd-funding money for the war effort, deleted his account after speculation he was not officially signed up to fight in Ukraine surfaced.
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