On September 24, the United States charged Ryan Routh, a 58-year-old American citizen, with plotting to assassinate former U.S. President and Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Routh is known as an outspoken supporter of Ukraine's self-defense against the Russian aggression, The Associated Press reported.
In Russia and in the U.S., pro-Kremlin sources leveraged Routh's history of supporting Ukraine to claim he acted on Kyiv's behalf.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested in his September 16 post on X that Ukraine "hired" Routh to assassinate Trump. The fact-checking outlet News Guard's Reality Check debunked Medvedev's claim as "baseless."
A U.S. conservative commentator, Tim Pool, accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of receiving $100,000 from the Russian government for each of his podcast videos, advanced a similar claim, saying in his September 17 podcast: "We must investigate Ukrainian involvement in the attempted assassination of Donald Trump."
Other state media and officials in Russia, including Maria Zakharova, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, repeated that narrative.
"Having analyzed the social media of the detained Ryan Routh, who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump, journalists came to the conclusion that representatives of the Kiev regime most likely involved him in recruiting foreigners, including from Afghanistan, to replenish the brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine."
The claim is unsubstantiated.
Neither the Russian authorities nor the Kremlin-aligned social media influencers provided evidence connecting the Ukrainian government to Routh. Kyiv denied any collaboration with him.
The FBI Miami special agent in charge, Jeffrey Veltri, said on September 16 that Routh had "an active online presence, and we are going through what he posted," analyzing "media reports and public statements he made that he wanted to recruit Afghan soldiers and others to fight for Ukraine."
Veltri said the investigation was in its early stages and the information obtained "at present" suggests that Routh acted alone.
In several interviews for news outlets and on his social media accounts, Routh claimed that he had been trying to recruit foreign soldiers to fight for Ukraine. But there is no evidence that his attempts to recruit volunteers into the Ukrainian army were successful.
Contrary to the Russian claims, Routh expressed frustration with the Ukrainian state for ignoring his repeated communication attempts.
In a June 2022 interview with Newsweek Romania, Routh stated that he had recently traveled to Ukraine to join the army but was turned away due to his age, being in his mid-50s, and lack of military experience, making him "not an ideal candidate" for combat.
In a March 2023 interview with The New York Times, Routh said he was in Washington and claimed to have spent "some time" in Ukraine. He again acknowledged he had never fought in the war with Russia, citing his age and lack of military experience.
After his rejection, Routh began attempting to recruit volunteer soldiers for Ukraine's International Legion, a part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
In a March 7, 2023, interview with the news site Semafor, Routh said Ukraine was reluctant to admit foreign fighters, including Afghan commandos. He criticized Ukraine for being difficult to work with, claiming it feared foreign volunteers might be Russian spies.
Chelsea Walsh, a nurse and aid worker in Kyiv during the early days of the Russian invasion, told The Associated Press that Routh was unsuccessfully attempting to recruit foreign soldiers. The failures made him "increasingly angry and unhinged." Upon returning to the U.S. in June 2022, Walsh warned U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents that Routh was "a ticking time bomb" and later shared her concerns with the FBI and Interpol.
Evelyn Aschenbrenner, a U.S. citizen who worked with the Ukrainian International Legion for two years, described Routh as "delusional and a liar" in a Newsweek interview. She warned on social media that Routh was "not, and never has been, associated with the International Legion or the Ukrainian Armed Forces at all."
Oleksandr Shahuri of the Foreigners Coordination Department of the Ukrainian Ground Forces Command stated that Routh never served in the Ukrainian army or collaborated with its military.
Shahuri told the New York Post that Routh visited Kyiv in 2022 and periodically approached the International Legion of Ukraine with "nonsensical ideas" that "can best be described as delusional."
On September 16, Ukraine's International Legion told the BBC that Routh had "never been part of, associated with or linked" with the legion ... in any capacity."
Ukrainian military intelligence stated on the same day that Routh "has never served in the International Legion of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and has no connection to the unit."