EU sanctions influencer Alexandra Jost over pro-Kremlin content

A controversial US influencer living in Russia whose apparently apolitical content skews noticeably pro-Kremlin has been included in the EU’s latest package of sanctions on Russia, the Council of the European Union announced on Monday.

Alexandra Jost, a US citizen with Russian heritage who posts variously as Sasha Meets Russia or Sasha and Russia, was revealed to be in the pay of Kremlin propaganda network RT by Novaya Gazeta Europe last year.

Though ostensibly building “an extensive base of followers under the guise of cultural coverage”, Jost had in fact been “disseminating disinformation and supporting Russia’s neo-colonial territorial claims about Ukraine”, the EU said.

An investigation by Novaya Gazeta Europe published in February 2025 revealed that Jost’s 2023 tax return showed she was on the payroll of TV Novosti, the legal entity behind RT, which is also under EU sanctions.

Citing its own investigation into Jost’s finances, the EU Council said that the influencer had received an average of $2000 per month from TV Novosti during the first three quarters of 2024, and that both she and her husband had received grants from the Kremlin’s Presidential Foundation for Cultural Initiatives via a PR agency.

Jost has always claimed to be apolitical, despite the fact that much of her content promotes so-called “traditional values”, which have become a staple of Kremlin propaganda campaigns in recent years.

In one post, Jost tells viewers that Russians have “more traditional customs” ingrained in them overall, “like the man being the main provider” for his wife, and advises Western women looking for a Russian husband to “be proud of being a feminine woman and stop trying to be equal to men”.

According to the EU, Jost addressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky directly in one post to tell him that Crimea was Russian and that soon all of Ukraine would be too, thus using her platform to facilitate “the use of information manipulation and interference” to threaten or undermine the security of the EU and Ukraine.