Ryan Routh was arrested today with an AK-47-style rifle several hundred yards from Donald Trump while the former president was golfing. According to the Washington Post, the “Trump golf course incident investigated as potential assassination attempt.”
Back in 2022, Routh reportedly traveled to Ukraine to recruit for the International Legion. According to >Newsweek Romania, which interviewed Routh in 2022, the American resident of Hawaii hoped to fight as a volunteer alongside the Ukrainian army, but was too old at age 56.
“So plan B,” Routh said,
was to come to Kiev and promote the idea of many others coming to join the International Legion. We need thousands of people here to fight alongside Ukrainians.
There are about 190 countries on our planet, and if the governments are not officially sending soldiers here, then we civilians should pick up this torch and make it happen.
Routh’s Twitter timeline is filled with scores of tweets volunteering his direct assistance to the war in Ukraine, cheerleading the war against Russia, and attacking opponents of military aid to Kiev such as Tulsi Gabbard.
Routh’s Twitter
I have had partners meeting with [Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense] every week and still have not been able to get them to agree to issue one single visa.
Routh also appeared in a March 25, 2023 New York Times feature about “The U.S. volunteers in Ukraine who lie, waste and bicker.”Among those featured alongside the North Carolina volunteer was Malcolm Nance, a star MSNBC commentator, who falsely told audiences he had enlisted for frontline combat against Russian soldiers when, in fact, he spent his time tweeting from a Lviv hotel room.
An official Ukrainian military enlistment form Routh posted on his Facebook page, which administrators have deleted.
As Alex Rubinstein reported for The Grayzone, the International Legion–also known as the Georgian Legion–“ has become a haven for assorted mercenaries, kooks, fascist activists and even wanted murderers. The Legion is led by Mamuka Mamilashvili, a Georgian warlord implicated in numerous war crimes.
NAFO, the online pro-Ukraine trolling collective, has raised millions for the Legion. Following news of Routh’s arrest, NAFO members worked to disassociate themselves from the accused would-be assassin.
Routh’s apparent assassination attempt took place at a zenith of proxy war hysteria, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky demanding the Biden administration grant him long range weapons and green lights strikes deep in Russian territory. A column published from Kiev this September 14 Fareed Zakaria, a close ally of the Biden administration, highlighted the panic that has gripped proxy warriors over a potential Trump victory.
According to Zakaria,
The delay in American aid during the past year, caused by infighting among stubborn Republicans in Congress, has contributed to the deterioration of the situation on the ground, and many now fear what will happen if Trump wins in November.
Routh has yet to discuss his motives for bringing an assault rifle to a golf course just hundreds of yards from Trump’s location. Perhaps his target was not only the former president, but a potential settlement to the Ukraine proxy war.