Ryan Wesley Routh is seen in video footage from Ukraine

The man named as the suspect in a possible assassination attempt near Donald Trump‘s Florida golf club on Sunday posted video of himself in Ukraine in 2022 as he worked to recruit foreign fighters.

Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, claimed to have helped rally soldiers for the International Legion, Ukraine’s military unit for foreign volunteer fighters, but was keen to get involved in the fighting and accepted he might not return home. 

‘I am willing to fly to Krakow and go to the border of Ukraine to volunteer and fight and die,’ he wrote on X weeks after the Russian invasion.

Realizing he was not eligible on the frontline due to his age, Routh instead tried to recruit Afghan soldiers fleeing the Taliban to fight in Ukraine, he said in a 2023 interview with The New York Times. 

A former construction worker from Greensboro, North Carolina, Routh spent several months in Ukraine in 2022. 

In video footage posted online, Routh outlined his role for those wondering why he had travelled to the war-torn country. 

‘Most wonder what I’m doing in Ukraine. This is a center to help people when they come from other countries have a location, someone to talk to as a greeting committee to get them in the location they need to be,’ he said while wearing a stars and stripes kerchief around his neck.

‘We’re helping foreigners be as useful as possible, to maximize their potential. Everyone here is self-funded. Everyone is struggling with money to be fuel. Any support would be tremendously appreciated,’ he pleaded.

Routh, who had no military experience, outlined his plan to recruit fighters by moving Afghan soldiers, in some cases  illegally from Pakistan and Iran to Ukraine. At the time he said dozens had expressed interest. 

‘We can probably purchase some passports through Pakistan, since it’s such a corrupt country,’ he said in during an interview at the time. 

Writing on the messaging app Signal, Routh stated: ‘Civilians must change this war and prevent future wars’ as part of his profile bio. 

Shortly after the war began, Routh directed an X message to Elon Musk, in which he wrote: ‘I would like to buy a rocket from you. I wish to load it with a warhead for Putin’s Black sea mansion bunker to end him. Can you give me a price please.’

So dedicated was Routh to Ukraine’s war effort he even helped cut the grass at Independence Square in Kyiv using scissors. 

Speaking to Newsweek Romania Routh said he believed the war with Russia was a simple case of good versus evil.

‘The question as far as why I’m here — to me, a lot of the other conflicts are grey, but this conflict is definitely black and white,’ Routh explained. 

‘This is about good versus evil. This is a storybook, you know, any movie we’ve ever watched, this is definitely evil against good.

‘We need thousands and thousands and thousands of people here fighting with Ukrainians,’ he added. 

Routh told how he wanted to go to battle despite having no experience.  

‘My original goal was to come and fight. All of us, from the entire planet, should be motivated to support the Ukrainian army, but I’m 56 years old and have no military experience, so I’m not an ideal candidate to actually fight.

‘So plan B 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 the Ukrainians.’

It is unclear how successful Routh’s recruitment drive might have been, but at least one former Afghan soldier told the Times he had been contacted by him and expressed an interested in fighting if it meant getting out of Iran.

In an interview with Semafor one year later, Routh expressed frustration with Ukrainians.

‘Ukraine is very often hard to work with,’ he said. ‘Many foreign soldiers leave after a week in Ukraine or must move from unit to unit to find a place they are respected and appreciated,’

Routh frequently posted on social media about the war in Ukraine and had a website where he sought to raise money and recruit volunteers to go to Kyiv to join the fight against the Russian invasion. 

Records show Routh lived in North Carolina for most of his life before moving to Hawaii in 2018. 

In 2020, he made a social media post backing Trump’s reelection, but in more recent years his posts have expressed support for Biden and Harris.

In June 2020, he made a post on X directed at then-President Trump to say he would win reelection if he issued an executive order for the Justice Department to prosecute police misconduct. 

That year, he also posted in support of the Democratic presidential campaign of then-U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who has since left the party and endorsed Trump. 

However, in recent years, his posts suggest he soured on Trump, and he expressed support for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

In July, following the assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania, Routh urged Biden and Harris to visit those wounded in the shooting at the hospital and to attend the funeral of a former fire chief killed at the rally.

Trump had been playing a round at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday afternoon, just nine weeks after the Republican presidential nominee survived another attempt on his life. The former president said he was safe and well.

U.S. Secret Service agents stationed a few holes up from where Trump was playing noticed the muzzle of an AK-style rifle sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course, about 400 yards away.

An agent fired and the gunman dropped the rifle and fled in an SUV, leaving the firearm behind along with two backpacks, a scope used for aiming and a GoPro camera, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said. 

The man was later stopped by law enforcement in a neighboring county.

He had a calm, flat demeanor and showed little emotion when he was stopped and didn’t question why he was pulled over, according Martin County Sheriff William Snyder.

‘He never asked, `what is this about?´ Obviously, law enforcement with long rifles, blue lights, a lot going on. He never questioned it,’ Snyder said.

Routh, a registered Democrat, was convicted in 2002 of possessing a weapon of mass destruction, per online North Carolina Department of Adult Correction records but could not provide details about the case.   

But a News & Record story from 2002 says a man with the same name was arrested after a three-hour standoff with police. 

According to his oft-updated X feed, Routh went from voting for Trump in 2016 to supporting Tulsi Gabbard in 2020 to demanding Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy form a unity team in 2024.

Routh professed his support for Biden and Harris prior to Biden leaving the race in 2024, saying ‘democracy is on the ballot and we cannot lose’. 

FEC filings show him donating to everyone from Gabbard to Andrew Yang to Elizabeth Warren to Tom Steyer in the 2020 Democrat primary.

During the George Floyd protests, he was preaching anti-police rhetoric but also used both ‘BlackLivesMatter’ and ‘AllLivesMatter’ as a hashtag.  

He wrote a tweet to Trump in June 2020 saying: ‘While you were my choice in 2106 [sic], I and the world hoped that president Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we all were greatly disappointment and it seems you are getting worse and devolving; are you retarded; I will be glad when you gone’.

Wesley’s son, Oran Routh, said his father is not a violent person and did not even believe him to own a gun. 

He told DailyMail.com his father hates Trump as ‘every reasonable person does.

The Florida golf course was partially shut down for Trump as he played, but there are several areas around the perimeter of the property where golfers are visible from the fence line. 

Secret Service agents and officers in golf carts and on ATVs generally secure the area several holes ahead and behind Trump when he plays. 

Agents also usually bring an armored vehicle onto the course to shelter Trump quickly should a threat arise.

The Palm Beach County sheriff said the entire golf course would have been lined with law enforcement if Trump were the president, but because he is not, ‘security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible.’

‘I would imagine that the next time he comes to the golf course, there will probably be a little more people around the perimeter,’ Bradshaw said. ‘But the Secret Service did exactly what they should have done, they provided exactly what the protection should have been and their agent did a fantastic job.’

Former presidents and their spouses have Secret Service protection for life, but the security around former presidents varies according to threat levels and exposure, with the toughest measures typically being taken in the immediate aftermath of their leaving office.