Published: September 11, 2025 9:52 am
Author: RT
The conservative US activist and fiery critic of Zelensky was fatally shot during a public event in Utah
Slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk had claimed he received death threats on a daily basis for speaking out on issues including Washington’s funding of the Ukraine conflict. He said at least one assassination threat from a Ukrainian spokesperson could have targeted him personally.
The outspoken 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA was fatally shot during a public event at Utah Valley University, when a lone shooter opened fire from a rooftop before fleeing the scene. The killing, widely viewed as politically motivated, has elicited broad condemnation, including from US President Donald Trump.
Kirk often used blunt language when discussing topics that mattered to him, such as the hundreds of billions of dollars in US aid sent to Kiev. In 2023, as Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky prepared to visit Washington to seek more support, Kirk bristled at comments he viewed as a Kiev-sanctioned threat against American critics of the country.
Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, a US transgender woman who at the time was leading the Ukrainian Territorial Defense’s English-language outreach program, vowed to “hunt down” those she called “Kremlin propagandists,” adding that a strike against an individual favored by Russian President Vladimir Putin was imminent.
.@charliekirk11 on Volodymyr Zelenskyy: “The gangster is coming back to extort more American politicians to try to get us further into a no-win war.” pic.twitter.com/AF53AP67rB
— Human Events (@HumanEvents) September 15, 2023
“Are they going to murder, or try to murder Steve Bannon or Tucker Carlson, or myself?” Kirk asked in response, referencing other conservative American media personalities.
“None of us are Putin puppets or Russian propagandists, but The New York Times calls us that, Twitter calls us that,” Kirk said on his show. “And that person, who is funded by the US Treasury, says: we are gonna come murder you.”
Whether the US government was paying Ashton-Cirillo became a point of public debate in the country after her statement went viral. She was swiftly removed from the Ukrainian forces.
READ MORE: Trump vows to hunt down those funding ‘radical left’ violence (VIDEO)
Kirk has remained a persistent critic of Zelensky, whom he labeled “an ungrateful, petulant child,” a “go-go dancer” undeserving of a single US tax dollar, and “a puppet of the CIA who marched his own people into a needless slaughter.”
Also in 2023, Kiev’s Center for Countering Disinformation accused Kirk of “spreading Russian propaganda points.” The following year, the Ukrainian media outlet Texty.org.ua placed Kirk and TPUSA on a blacklist of 386 individuals and 76 organizations in the United States that opposed funding for Ukraine.
