Perhaps the most interesting angle to attempted Trump assassin Ryan Routh's recent history in his Ukraine connection. We documented that when he went to Ukraine to recruit for its International Legion in 2022 he was a Western mainstream media darling for a time, having been quoted on behalf of the cause to get more foreign fighters thrown into the battle against Russia by a who's who of major media sources from FT to Newsweek to the NY Times.
But when he arrived in Ukraine, according to these media reports, the 58-year old Routh himself was considered too old to fight alongside the Ukrainian army. "So plan B," Routh described to one outlet, "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," he described. He had told Newsweek in a video interview from Ukraine that the war with Russia was as simple as "good vs. evil" and essentially the same as good guys and bad guys in the Hollywood movies Americans grew up with. It was not a gray conflict, he described, but "black and white".
In March of 2022, just a month into the Russian invasion, he tweeted that everyone around the globe should be willing to volunteer and "fight and die" in Ukraine. Still, much of his time was reportedly spent in a hotel room in the far western city of Lviv.
Among the more bizarre aspects to his campaigning on behalf of the Ukrainian military's foreign legion were his efforts to recruit US-trained Afghan special soldiers to go to Ukraine's front lines. The initiative appeared so large in scale (given Routh was seeking to transfer hundreds, or even thousands, of Afghan fighters - according to his words) - that one commentator questions in light of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump: "Who was he working with in the US government that was allowing him to do this?"
In a 2023 interview with the NY Times Routh openly displayed his proclivity toward violent acts by threatening to shoot his critics, and the Times featured the quote almost as if lionizing his commitment to defending Ukraine:
In a telephone interview with The New York Times in 2023, when Mr. Routh was in Washington, he spoke with the self-assuredness of a seasoned diplomat who thought his plans to support Ukraine’s war effort were sure to succeed. But he appeared to have little patience for anyone who got in his way. When an American foreign fighter seemed to talk down to him in a Facebook message he shared with The New York Times, Mr. Routh said, "he needs to be shot."
Surely visibility like this put him on the federal government's radar... or given Washington's pro-Ukraine euphoria US officials were possibly even helping him in some way.
He had received so much media attention also apparently as head of the International Volunteer Center in Ukraine. Importantly, he has boasted of having "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." This raises the question of the degree of his involvement with US government officials at the time.
The Times had documented that Routh planned to move volunteers "in some cases illegally, from Pakistan and Iran to Ukraine" - and claimed that many had expressed interests. He further boasted of breaking or at least bending foreign countries' laws in some cases. "We can probably purchase some passports through Pakistan, since it’s such a corrupt country," he told NY Times. He announced on Facebook at one point, "Soldiers, please do not call me. We are still trying to get Ukraine to accept Afghan soldiers and hope to have some answers in the coming months… please have patience."
He also recounted some of this experience in his self-published book, still available on Amazon, which is titled "Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen-Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea and the end of Humanity."
As if all of this weren't shady enough, raising a myriad of questions over who in the US government knew what and when of the future would-be Trump shooter, he had connections with Ukraine's neo-Nazi Azov Brigade (often referenced by its earlier name Azov Battalion).
For a brief background review of Azov, even mainstream media has long grudgingly admitted that "in response to the neo-Nazi ideology of the group's founders, the US had banned the regiment from using American weapons in 2014." But the State Department more recently claimed it found "no evidence" that the extremist militant group has committed human rights violations or war crimes (in which case US law would prohibit providing weapons or training). This after President Volodymyr Zelensky himself has long been boosting the reputation Azov commanders in public appearances.
The US State Department in June of this year announced that it finally lifted a longtime ban on giving weapons and training to the notorious group. All the while, Azov's members have never been shy about sporting Nazi-inspired patches.
As of Monday, and with all of these deep Ukraine connections made evident with regard to Ryan Routh, the Zelensky government as well as Azov Brigade are attempting some serious PR damage control. But in the process, their statements actually serve to confirm Routh's connections to the neo-Nazi outfit.
According to EuroNews:
Meanwhile, a video appeared on social media linking Routh to the Azov Brigade, claiming he participated in a 2022 event to support the unit's Mariupol brigade.
The Azov Brigade said the event was a peaceful demonstration open to all and that Routh was never part of the unit.
"We would like to officially state that Ryan Wesley Routh has no connection to Azov and has never had any connection to Azov," the unit said in a statement on X.
So they are literally doing the "mostly peaceful" line. And the statement from Azov Brigade continues with an attempt to blame all of this on Russia: "We believe that the spread of the narrative about the possible connection between Azov and Ryan Wesley Routh is playing along with Russian propaganda and discredits the 12th Special Forces Brigade Azov of the National Guard of Ukraine and the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine in general."
And yet, below is an example of something Routh posted to his social media. The GrayZone reported on it before it was deleted by Facebook administrators, presumably amid the FBI/Secret Service investigation: An official Ukrainian military enlistment form Routh posted on his Facebook page, which administrators have deleted.
But one thing is still indisputable based on the mounting piles of public evidence. As geopolitical analyst Andrew Korybko points out, "The suspect is a Ukro-maniac who’d been radicalized by the Mainstream Media into traveling to Kiev, trying to join the 'International Legion'..."
Korybko further comments:
There’s no way that the earlier mentioned American “deep state” had no idea who Routh was after he’d already traveled to Kiev to try to join the “International Legion” and then openly told the New York Times about his plans to recruit Afghan soldiers that fled to Pakistan as refugees. He also brazenly boasted about how he’d purchase passports for them from there to facilitate their travel to Ukraine. The FBI might soon “do the meme” and admit that he was “on their radar”, but there’s much more to it.
The Newsweek interview... certainly the mainstream didn't treat him as just some rando who happened to be passing through war-ravaged Ukraine.
Clearly, this doesn't look like a guy who had no connections in Ukraine, or was merely some 'war tourist' on the sidelines as the Ukrainian government and Azov would have us believe. Again the questions remain: what did the US government know about this radicalized individual and when did they know it? Did he have help from US government officials in his Ukraine travels and recruitment campaign? Why wasn't he investigated years ago?
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