Kiev, Ukraine — The shots fired by the Secret Service at a Florida golf course near former President Donald Trump on Sunday echoed 5,000 miles away — in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
After what authorities called the second attempted assassination of Trump in three months, a man named Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was arrested and charged.
Routh had already been widely profiled in the Western media as a fervent supporter of Ukraine in its fight against the ongoing Russian invasion. He had traveled to Ukraine to fight, but had said in media interviews that he had turned to enlistment after being rejected by the army for being too old and lacking battlefield experience.
Ukraine sought to distance itself from Routh on Monday, with the country’s International Legion — the military unit staffed by foreign volunteers — saying it had nothing to do with him. Meanwhile, officials in the United States have yet to offer a possible motive.
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Russia quickly sought to weaponize its support for Ukraine, an unwelcome development for Kiev at a time when both US support and battlefield security were at stake.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, says she will continue President Joe Biden’s support for Kiev. Trump, the Republican candidate, is less unequivocal: he twice refused to say during last week’s debate whether he wants the US ally to win the war.
Many Ukrainians already feared that an election victory for him would spell disaster for their war effort, which is heavily dependent on Washington. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted on X early Monday morning that he was “glad to hear that @realDonaldTrump is safe and unharmed. My best wishes to him and his family.”
“It is good that the suspect of the attempted murder was quickly arrested,” he wrote. “This is our principle: the rule of law comes first and political violence has no place anywhere in the world. We sincerely hope that everyone remains safe.”
But Moscow was already stirring things up.
“I wonder what would happen if it turned out that the failed new Trump shooter Routh, who recruited mercenaries for the Ukrainian army, was himself hired by the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev for this assassination attempt?” Dmitry Medvedev, the former president of Russia and current vice chairman of the Security Council, wrote on X. There is no evidence to support that suggestion.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “it is not us who should think about it, it is the American special services who should think about it. In any case, playing with fire has its consequences. Therefore, this should first of all be a great concern and headache for the American special services.”
Legion rejects left
Routh, the self-appointed director of an unofficial group called the International Volunteer Center, used Facebook to try to recruit Afghan soldiers who had fled the Taliban in 2021 to fight for Kiev against Moscow. He encouraged potential recruits who spoke English to send him their information via WhatsApp.
“Volunteering in Ukraine is the most honorable and noble sacrifice, and every human being on the planet should be here for freedom and human rights,” Routh’s military recruitment website states. “If you don’t have military experience, you have to sell yourself that you are capable.”
In May 2022, a GoFundMe page was set up on his behalf by Kathleen Shaffer, who said she was his fiancée. The page, which had raised more than $1,800 when it was taken down on Sunday, was intended to help his volunteer and fundraising efforts in Ukraine.
However, none of these efforts were linked to the Ukrainian military, which had rebuffed his advances and appeared to treat his enthusiasm with suspicion. In interviews, Routh complained about what he called Ukraine’s attitude toward his overtures. Oleksandr Shahuri, a spokesman for the Ukrainian International Legion, told NBC News that Routh never served in the legion and that it had no other record of any interactions with him.
“We would like to clarify that Ryan Wesley Routh has never been a part of, associated with, or affiliated with the International Legion in any capacity. Any claims or suggestions to the contrary are completely false,” the Legion said in a separate emailed statement.
“It is important to note that military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine must refrain from discussing US domestic policy or its international implications. We fully respect and welcome the decisions that the American people make when choosing their elected representatives,” it added.
The Ukrainian government and military did not immediately respond to requests for comment from NBC News.
Routh said on social media that he supported Trump in 2016 but had had enough of Republicans in 2020, writing: “I’ll be glad when you’re gone [sic]” in June of that year. Around the same time, he also tweeted in support of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and then-Democrat-turned-independent Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, saying that Biden “stands for nothing.”
Not only did he want to repel the Russian invasion, he also said in 2022 that “we won’t stop until Putin is dead and Moscow is in ruins,” in a post on X, calling on the United States to expand its nuclear arsenal.
He also openly invited North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in 2020 to “come to Hawaii for vacation,” saying that “it would be an honor to have you on our beaches. I am a leader here and can arrange the whole trip. Please come.”
There are other aspects of his online profile that have not yet been explained. His WhatsApp bio reads: “We all need to help the Chinese,” with no further explanation.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, he became a vocal presence on social media and in Kiev’s Maidan Square, where he set up a tent and billboards to mobilize volunteers. Photos online showed him with dyed blue and blond hair — the colors of the Ukrainian flag — wrapped in a Star Spangled Banner neckerchief and a bulletproof vest.
That summer, NBC News spoke briefly with Routh, who said in a report that the West’s “limited response” to the war in Ukraine was “an indictment of the entire human race” and “deeply disappointing.” There was never a formal interview, nor were Routh’s comments included in NBC News’s coverage of the war.
This is a very loaded topic.
Ukraine would not have been able to defend itself so vigorously against Russia without tens of billions of dollars in aid from the United States and other Western powers.
But the country has been pressuring its supporters to do more, and there is great uncertainty and fear about the path Trump would take if he were to win. Those concerns in Kiev have only been fueled by Sunday’s events.
Daryna Mayer reported from Kiev, and Alex Smith and Caroline Radnofsky reported from London.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
