KYIV, Ukraine—A stranger approached as I was walking with a colleague around Maidan Square, one of Kyiv’s most famous landmarks, on June 17, 2022. He introduced himself as an American volunteer from Hawaii, who had supposedly sold all his possessions to come out and help Ukraine in its fight for freedom.
His name was Ryan Routh. He is now notorious as the man the FBI says attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump on Sunday.
Slightly disheveled, with strands of dyed blue and yellow hair peeking out from underneath his camouflage cap, he made a rather poor impression—and he certainly didn’t look like a recruiting officer for Ukraine’s International Legion, as he had introduced himself.
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Upon hearing that I was a journalist, he asked me if I’d be willing to share his “message to the world,” a plea to support Ukraine with men, guns, and ammo. I knew I’d be unable to do anything with the footage of that lone, teary-eyed American volunteer, but figured I’d do the man a favor, so I whipped out my phone and asked him to introduce himself.
What followed was a five to six-minute rant about the need for governments and people all around the world to come help Ukraine, to keep the war in the media spotlight, and to provide the besieged nation with all it needed to defend itself and win.
His face gaunt and his voice strained with emotion, he begged for people to come here and help. Afterwards, he spoke a few more words of support for Ukraine and thanked me for our time, before we parted ways.
I hadn’t thought again about meeting him until today. Routh has now been charged with federal gun crimes after a Secret Service agent allegedly spotted him with an AK-47-style rifle at a Florida golf course where Trump was playing on Sunday.
It’s not clear what Routh was doing in Ukraine. He told the Financial Times he was informed that, at 56, he was too old to fight so had instead put up a tent on the Maidan in order to help co-ordinate foreign volunteers. Current and former Ukrainian officials have said that Routh wasn’t ever in the International Legion, with one ex-Legion member telling The Telegraph that Routh was “full of s–t.”
Around 7:30 this morning in Kyiv, I was awakened by the relentless pings of notifications coming from my phone. My eyelids still heavy with sleep, I checked the screen and, upon seeing the characteristic X logo, I considered going back to bed and finding out later what kind of silly internet feud I once again had become embroiled in.
Curiosity got the best of me however. I got myself a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table to check what the fuss was all about: I was rather surprised to see that the video I had recorded and shared all the way back in June 2022 was at the heart of some kind of controversy.
I cringed at the fact that I was still using hashtags back in those days and set out to find what was so controversial about it, which is when I stumbled upon a quote-tweet of Thomas van Linge, a respected freelance journalist, that mentioned “suspected Trump assassin Ryan Routh.”
I froze. “Suspected Trump assassin”? I went on a frantic Google search and discovered that the scraggly but apparently well-meaning volunteer who had walked up to me one sunny morning in June 2022 was now suspected of having tried to assassinate the former American president—and current nominee for the Republican Party.
It didn’t strike me as odd at the time, but upon rewatching the footage I took of Routh, it seems to me that Routh faults people rather than their governments for not helping Ukraine enough. He said he thought every single adult should be looking into their own conscience and asking themselves if they were heroes or villains.
“This is truly heroic what these kids and adults have done as far as getting here on their own dime and their own money to come here and fight with the Ukrainians but it’s only a small percentage. If we have 5,000 here versus 5 billion adults [in the world], it’s nothing, it’s a drop in the bucket and we need 100,000 people here fighting,” he said.
“This square should be filled with thousands of people from every country, we’ve only 50 countries. We’ve got 190 countries, so obviously we’re missing 140 countries, that’s unacceptable. Every civilian from every country needs to come here, this is an indictment of every civilian’s good and evil compass. If you’re not here and you’re sitting on your couch watching TV, then you’re not doing the right thing.”
Seen in a new light, the rant betrays his bizarre personal philosophy: that everyone should be picking up a gun and taking matters into their own hands.
