By MAX BLUMENTHAL – The Grey Zone
Before he was caught with an AK-47 on a golf course near Trump, Ryan Routh went to Kiev to fight for Ukraine’s military and recruit for its International Legion. In a book-length manifesto, Routh wished for assassinations of Putin and Trump, and urged nuclear war with Russia.
Ryan Routh was arrested today with an AK-47-style rifle fitted with a sniper scope 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.”
According to the Times, Routh planned to move volunteers “in some cases illegally, from Pakistan and Iran to Ukraine. He said dozens had expressed interest.
We can probably purchase some passports through Pakistan, since it’s such a corrupt country,”the vagabond told the paper in an interview from Washington DC.
In his 291-page book-length manifesto, “Unwinnable War,” which he published at Amazon and sold for $2.99 – and which is currently listed as #1 in the category of “Schools and Teaching – Routh clamors for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin, fantasizes about Trump’s assassination as well, and urges the US military to “instigate” a nuclear war with Russia.
Among those Routh described meeting in his book was Spanish celebrity chef and business mogul Jose Andres, a close ally of the Biden administration and “culinary ambassador” for the State Department.
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.