Alexandra Yost. Photo: @sashajost / Instagram
As part of the 21st package of sanctions against Russia, the Council of the EU added blogger Alexandra Yost (Sasha Yost), a U.S. citizen who covertly received a salary from RT, to its sanctions list.
Maria Dudko was also added to the same list. She heads the agency Bezgranichnye, which promotes Russia with the help of foreign bloggers.
Who this is about. Alexandra Yost is a 27-year-old blogger from the United States with Russian roots who runs accounts on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. In her videos, she compares life in Russia and Western countries in Russia’s favor. The EU accused her of spreading disinformation about the war and of encroaching on Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
According to Yost’s 2023 tax return, reviewed by Novaya Gazeta Europe, she received a salary from JSC TV-Novosti, RT’s legal entity. According to the EU, in the first three quarters of 2024 the blogger received an average of 170,000 rubles per month from RT.
In addition, Yost and her husband Domingo Garcia received grants through the Bezgranichnye agency, owned by Maria Dudko, from the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives. At the same time, Yost did not publicly disclose her ties to RT.
Maria Dudko, who was also sanctioned, created the Bezgranichnye agency in April 2024. It specializes in working with foreign bloggers who make content about moving to Russia and promote the country abroad.
According to Novaya-Europe, Yost and her husband were listed in Bezgranichnye’s catalog. The Council of the EU believes that the agency coordinates the activities of Western influencers who spread pro-Russian disinformation.
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Who else was sanctioned. The EU imposed restrictions on several Russians it considered involved in the poisoning of Alexei Navalny. In particular, Prosecutor General Alexander Gutsan was sanctioned; he was described as responsible for designating the FBK a “terrorist organization.”
The list also included FSB officers who, according to investigative journalists, were linked to surveillance of Navalny. The restrictions also affected Alexander Murakhovsky, the former chief doctor of the Omsk hospital, who denied that the opposition politician had fallen into a coma because of poisoning.
Also sanctioned was “Vladimir Putin’s spiritual adviser,” Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov) of Simferopol and Crimea. The Council of the EU said that the clergyman “systematically spreads pro-Kremlin disinformation, including statements about ‘Nazism’ in Ukraine.”
In addition, restrictions were imposed on Roman Plugin, head of the St. Petersburg Interior Ministry directorate, Oleg Yevtushenko, executive director of Rostec, and former ombudsman Pavel Astakhov.