The gunman charged in a suspected assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump tried to mobilize an army of foreign fighters to help Ukraine, but his freelance efforts to influence the war were as futile as they were frustrating for military on the ground, according to a former Ukrainian army recruiter.
Ryan Wesley Routh spent more than two years trying to funnel volunteers to Ukraine’s short-handed military, and was repeatedly accused of misrepresenting himself. Members of Ukraine’s international legion have been disavowing Routh since long before Sunday afternoon, when he allegedly lay in wait for 12 hours outside the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, Florida, and leveled a rifle at Trump through a chain-link fence.
“American citizen Ryan Routh has never served in the International Legion of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, has no relation to the unit,” Ukrainian military intelligence said in a statement Monday. “Rumors disseminated in certain media are not true.”
At a press conference on Monday, the FBI had little to say about Routh’s motive. But his social media profile, a book he self-published and people who knew him in Ukraine portray a grandiose figure who turned Ukrainian tragedy into a private crusade − and a man who may have voted for Trump before considering him worthy of assassination.
“The vibe I got was a delusions of grandeur thing, like a religious zealot,” Evelyn Aschenbrenner, an American who served in Ukraine’s international legion, said in an interview. Working first as an active-duty administrative aide, and later as a Ukrainian army recruiter, the Detroit native had multiple text exchanges with Routh as he trampled the rules while trying to bring in recruits from Afghanistan, Finland and other countries.
More: How Secret Service reacted in apparent second attempt to assassinate Trump
When challenged over his intrusions, “he got very hostile,” Aschenbrenner told USA TODAY. “He accused me of not wanting to help Ukraine. He said he’s the only person who cares about Ukraine.”
Aschenbrenner was on an overnight train from Kharkiv to Lviv late Sunday when news broke that Routh had been arrested after being fired on by Secret Service agents.
“That fits,” the former Ukrainian army private mused. “That tracks.”
‘Every civilian from every country’
Routh, a 58-year-old North Carolina native, was charged Monday with federal weapons violations. Trump was not harmed in the incident, the second apparent attempt on his life in just over two months.
Routh’s work in Ukraine left him disappointed. In a self-published book released a year after Russia’s invasion, he describes being turned away after asking to join the international legion.
“He was rejected on two criteria,” Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said. “First, age: He was 56 years old at that time, that’s very old. And secondly, he has a complete lack of any military specialty.”
Instead, Routh retreated to Independence Square in central Kyiv, set up a tent and tried to recruit volunteers – both Ukrainian and foreigners – to join the fighting. He was a familiar figure, lean and bright, wearing the American flag as a scarf and often on his T-shirts.
More: See dramatic images, body cam video from attempted assassination of Trump in Florida
“He was like an extrovert,” said Chris Lutz, a German aid worker, who said he would often chat with Routh on visits back from the front lines. “When he spoke, he would be all over the person.”
But Routh’s jamboree in the square ended badly: Within a few weeks, police had thrown away his tent and arrested him for “vocal protest,” he wrote.
In a video posted to social media in July 2022, Routh tried to rally foreign support. “This square should be filled with thousands of people from every country,” Routh said.
Lutz described him as slightly manic mascot for the war effort who portrayed himself as a critical link between foreign volunteers and the Ukrainian military.
“It was getting harmful toward the legion that many people thought he was affiliated,” Lutz said. Routh’s efforts, he added, were “more smoke than fire, actually.”
He turned bitter as officials rejected his quixotic plans.
“The resounding message I received from my time in Ukraine is that they do not like nor want our help,” he concludes in “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War.”
Ryan Routh’s Afghan gambit
Aschenbrenner recalled one extraordinary exchange when Routh sent her a list of “five to six thousand Afghan names,” all purported volunteers for the Ukrainian defense. “Who has vetted them? Do they even have passports? Do they have military experience?” Aschenbrenner recalls asking. “You have no authority to be talking to people about recruitment.”
On Monday, FBI Special Agent Jeffrey B. Veltri confirmed Routh’s Afghan gambit at press conference.
“His way of helping Ukraine was to come up with these very hare-brained, ridiculous ideas,” Aschenbrenner said. “A lot of Americans do this. They think their pet project is going to save the world.”
More: Secret Service’s elevated presence thwarted potential second Trump assassination attempt
Alleged gunman’s Trump problem
The FBI hasn’t yet said what pushed Routh to build a makeshift sniper’s nest outside the Trump golf course on Sunday.
In his memoir, Routh even suggests he voted for Trump in 2016.
He mentions Trump nine times in the book, criticizing the former president’s role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, while praising him for trying to spark a relationship with North Korean despot Kim Jong-Un. But he harshly criticizes Trump for dismantling the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement − while assuming partial responsibility for Trump’s election.
“I must take part of the blame for the…child that we elected for our next president that ended up being brainless,” Routh wrote, “but I am man enough to say that I misjudged and made a terrible mistake and Iran, I apologize.”
He followed with an invitation: “You are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgement and the dismantling of the deal.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Suspected Trump gunman Ryan Routh frustrated Ukrainian officials
