Ryan Wesley Routh, charged with gun offenses following a second assassination attempt on Donald Trump, sent Ukraine’s International Legion a number of “hostile” and manipulative” messages over a two-year period, a former volunteer for the organization told Newsweek.
Routh, 58, was arrested on Sunday in connection with the attempt to shoot the former president, 78, at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump survived “what appears to be an assassination attempt” the FBI said. The former president was “safe following gunshots in his vicinity” at his golf club, the Trump campaign said.
In a federal court appearance Monday morning, Routh was charged with two gun crimes—possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Routh is due to appear in court again on September 23, for a bond hearing. He could also face further charges.
The former construction worker from Greensboro, North Carolina, has presented himself since 2022 as a recruiter for the International Legion Defense of Ukraine, a unit of Ukraine’s Ground Forces.
The claim was dismissed on Monday by the organization itself, while Evelyn Aschenbrenner, a U.S. citizen from Detroit, Michigan, who worked with the team for two years beginning in March 2022—first in administration, and then as a recruiter—branded Routh as “delusional” and a “liar” over his claims.
In a phone interview with Newsweek from Kyiv, Aschenbrenner, who left the International Legion in mid-June, shared a slew of messages they received from Routh between March 2022 and June this year via messaging apps Signal and WhatsApp.
Routh sent details of potential recruits to Aschenbrenner, including a list of some 6,000 Afghani citizens. He would then become “hostile” and “manipulative” when told to refrain from doing so, Aschenbrenner.
An encounter with Routh on August 24, 2022, Ukraine’s independence day, is when Aschenbrenner “first really realized [Routh] was not firing with all pistons up there.”
“There was an increased security alert [due to] strikes from Russia, and because of that, there was curfew. I think it was 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. in Kharkiv, and [he wanted] to get a foreign person over the border to join Legion. And I’m like, not today, dude,” Aschenbrenner said.
In the messages on Signal, viewed by Newsweek, Aschenbrenner, who uses the pronouns they/them, was bombarded with personal questions after they said they couldn’t help get someone across the border to Ukraine.
Messages between Evelyn Aschenbrenner and Ryan Wesley Routh on the messaging app Signal. They have been branded manipulative.
Evelyn Aschenbrenner
“Can you please stop being dramatic and ask someone in Yavoriv? I’m the admin officer for the first battalion of the International Legion, on the eastern side of the country. I have no authority to bring anything from border to Yavoriv,” Aschenbrenner told Routh.
Routh asked Aschenbrenner questions such as “Where are you from,” “What country were you born in,” and finally: “Are you ukrainian or not. If you are not ukrainian all is good.”
“What does that have to do with anything?… I have no idea why you’re asking me that question, and I find it invasive and irritating. I don’t work in Yavoriv and I don’t have the authority to do what you’re asking. That’s all you need to know. Contact someone in Yavoriv who has the authority,” Aschenbrenner responded.
“I do think [Routh] seemed to be a little delusional, I don’t think he thought he was a real recruiter, but I thought he really he believed that he was helping Ukraine, and he was the only one who could help Ukraine doing what he did,” Aschenbrenner said of their exchanges.
On November 19, 2023, Routh contacted Aschenbrenner on WhatsApp, telling the International Legion recruiter that he had a list of “thousands of Afghan soldiers if you need soldiers.”
Messages between Evelyn Aschenbrenner and Ryan Wesley Routh on the messaging app WhatsApp. Routh becomes insulting in the messages.
Evelyn Aschenbrenner
Aschenbrenner showed Newsweek that he sent them a 207-page document with a list of names.
“I have so many questions. Did you hire someone that speaks their local language, or do they all speak English? Can Afghans enter Europe without a visa? Do you have any way of vetting their military experience or training?” Aschenbrenner asked Routh.
Aschenbrenner told Routh that it sounded like a “massive security risk.”
“Also the legion has a recruiting system that you are not part of. You are absolutely not helping anything by doing this,” Aschenbrenner said.
Routh said the Afghani individuals “worked with the US so getting background checks is easy.”
“We have to sort through them all just like any country; take the good and leave the selfish greedy ones,” he said.
Messages between Evelyn Aschenbrenner and Ryan Wesley Routh on the messaging app WhatsApp. Routh grew accusatory, according to the recipient.
Evelyn Aschenbrenner
Aschenbrenner then asked Routh if the Russian government was paying him to “cause issues with recruiting for Ukraine’s legion.”
“Seriously, this is a terrible, unworkable idea. Afghanistan’s government isn’t recognized as legitimate by any country on the planet. There aren’t thousands of Afghanis who have valid passports and can afford to legally travel out of the country,” they told Routh.
A day later, Routh told Aschenbrenner that he is “happy and not worried about ukraine” and that “congress is cutting all funding now it seems….good luck.”
“Ukraine has chased away all foreign support; it is just the reality; just because I am speaking facts. Ukraine does not want help- you said it. Once China attacks Taiwan they can give everything they have to Putin; the gates will be open and I and the world will see the end of Ukraine……,” Routh wrote.
Aschenbrenner told Newsweek they were angered when Routh in February 2023 posted their personal details online, promising individuals the chance to fight in Ukraine.
“[He] started giving out my phone number, another person’s phone number, and after getting phone calls from soldiers from Uganda…I had several arguments with him on Signal to say, this is not a service that anyone wants or needs.”
When Aschenbrenner refused to help Routh, he would say “‘Oh you don’t really want to help Ukraine’,” the former recruiter said.
“He was very emotionally twisting like that, where if you refused to help or pushed back against him, he was very accusatory. He never listened to anything that I said, he didn’t register,” Aschenbrenner said.
“I don’t know if he’s ever been in Ukraine, but he seemed to have this…like he was the only one who could help save Ukraine—if you didn’t do exactly what he wanted when he wanted, somehow you were helping Russia win. I was like, that’s dramatic.”
Aschenbrenner added: “There seems to be a lot going on. There was delusions of grandeur and [he was] very disconnected from reality.”
When questioned about a possible motive in the suspected assassination attempt on Trump, Aschenbrenner said they “wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he thought that trying to assassinate Trump would somehow help further Ukraine’s cause.”
“My first thought was like, his deluded adult brain, thought this was somehow going to help Ukraine. Because as we know, Trump has been friendly to Putin in the past. He’s not very pro-Ukraine,” they said.
The former U.S. president has criticized the scale of U.S. support and military aid for Kyiv amid the war, which is now in its third year.
Aschenbrenner added: “Everything [Routh’s] done has been absolutely detrimental to Ukraine, everything.”
In an interview with Newsweek Romania in June 2022, Routh had said: “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. This is about good versus evil. This is a storybook, you know, any movie we’ve ever watched, this is definitely evil against good.”
A Semafor report published on March 10, 2023, cited Routh as the head of the International Volunteer Center (IVC) in Ukraine, a private organization that works to “empower volunteers” and other nonprofit groups that work to “enhance the distribution of humanitarian aid throughout Ukraine,” according to the IVC’s website.
Routh’s account on X, formerly Twitter, has been suspended. However, Newsweek has seen the contents before the suspension.
On X, Routh posted dozens of times in support of Ukraine. In March 2022, for example, shortly after the full-scale invasion began, he wrote: “I AM WILLING TO FLY TO KRAKOW AND GO TO THE BORDER OF UKRAINE TO VOLUNTEER AND FIGHT AND DIE … Can I be the example We must win.”
Earlier posts appear to indicate a shift in his political stance. In June 2020, in a post tagging Trump’s account, he wrote: “While you were my choice in 2106, 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.”
“I will be glad when you gone,” he added.
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