Former Navy sailor outed as behind pro-Russian ‘Donbass Devushka’ accounts
Mike Brest
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A former Navy noncommissioned officer has been outed as being involved in a popular pro-Russian social media presence that has promoted the leaked classified U.S. documents.
Sarah Bils, 37, who was an electronic technician second class, according to her biography, is one of about 15 people who are allegedly behind a pro-Russian series of social media accounts known as “Donbass Devushka,” according to the Wall Street Journal. She served at the U.S. naval air station on Whidbey Island until late last year.
SUSPECT FIRST LEAKED TEXT OF CLASSIFIED DOCS AROUND DECEMBER, AFFIDAVIT SAYS
While Bils had a security clearance during her time in the Navy, there’s no information to suggest she leaked any classified information herself.
Airman 1st Class Jack Douglas Teixeira was charged last week with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material, according to court documents. He was allegedly releasing the information in a chatroom on the Discord platform in a group, Thug Shaker Central, of about 20-30 young men who share similar interests.
Two U.S. defense officials told USNI News that the Department of Justice is investigating her role in the spreading of the classified documents, while a DOJ spokesperson declined to comment to the Washington Examiner. A Department of Defense official said on Monday that Bils was not under investigation while she was in the military.
“As far as I’m aware, while she was in uniform, there was not” an investigation, Pentagon deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters on Monday.
The Donbass Devushka telegram account posted four of the purportedly leaked documents to its roughly 65,000 followers, which led to several larger pro-Russian accounts to notice them. Bils denied posting the documents, saying another administrator did it and she later deleted them.
“Some very interesting potential intel,” the Donbass Devushka Telegram account posted on April 5. “The authenticity cannot be confirmed but looks to be very damning nato information.”
One of the documents the account reposted looked like an identical photograph to one that had allegedly been released by Teixeira on Discord but had been changed to inflate Ukrainian casualties in the war and decrease those of Russia. A week later, the account denied altering the document.
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Bils left the military last November with an honorable discharge, though she did so at the rank of E-5; she had been promoted to the E-7 rank of chief aviation electronics technician in late 2020. There was no clear explanation for the demotion.
The Donbas region is in the eastern part of Ukraine, though there’s a heavy pro-Russian presence. Fighting has been going on in the region for years, but it is also where most of the entire war is going on.