On April 7, 2022, in the first months after the start of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, a Telegram channel entitled Donbass Devushka appears, which begins to share numerous contents of pro-Russian propaganda and, in particular, the Wagner group. The channel’s name, which has over 68,000 subscribers, is said to be the pseudonym of a woman who claimed to be a Russian Jew from Lugansk. After a year of propaganda, someone has tracked down her identity: a former US Navy employee named Sarah Bils. His credibility was questioned by some errors, such as his place of birth changing from Russia to Gaza from time to time. In addition to the Telegram channel, Bils managed different social accounts with other names: Mila Medvedev, CheburekiVibes, MeatballSubZero, YuGopnik and GhostofLugansk. Through the first account he has confirmed on Patreon to operate under the pseudonym Donbass Devushka.
Throughout 2022, he has even fallen out with fellow propagandists in some podcastDiscussion of various conspiracy theories against Ukraine, forgotten in some cases wrong russian accent. Another element that has led to doubts about his Russian or non-American origins. His true identity was discovered by the pro-Ukrainian group known as NAFO (North Atlantic Fella Organization), which was shared in a lengthy article on Malcontentment.com website.
It is believed that the woman came up with the entire staging in order to get donations that, according to users, were destined for Donbass. In fact, in one post, Telegram sold items that accepted payments through PayPal, CashApp, and cryptocurrencies, clearly stating, “All proceeds go to Donbass.”
Once his personal social networks were identified and verified, the group received the video from a call via Zoom in connection with his current job: a tropical fish shop. The voice is the same but without the Russian accent. The NAFO group not only discovered his identity. She lives in New Jersey and is divorced. Through the marriage certificate from 2011, they learn that she was not born in Russia or Ukraine, but in Voorhees New Jersey. Her parents, interviewed by Malcontentment, have denied any ties to any former Soviet bloc country, although she continues to claim she was born and raised in Donbass and then moved to the United States.
From the reconstruction provided by NAFO, she would appear as a mythomaniac: after an accident in 2021, she had started presenting herself as a geopolitical expert with two degrees, but her Linkedin profile only reported one. The name Donbass Devushka became particularly well-known not because of this story, but because of a Telegram channel of some subscribers of the same name who shared some documents of the so-called Pentagon leaks. As Bellingcat noted, the images he shared were later than those broadcast on other channels, of poor quality and manipulated compared to the first. His pictures had been then transfer by Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
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