By Gram Slattery and David Lawder
(Reuters) -Kyiv on Monday denied links to a man accused of trying to assassinate former U.S. President Donald Trump, after it emerged that the suspect was a supporter of Ukraine who had said he wanted to recruit foreign volunteers to fight there.
Trump was safe on Sunday after the Secret Service foiled what the FBI called the second apparent assassination attempt on the Republican candidate for president in two months, capturing a gunman who had brought a rifle to Trump’s golf course.
Media interviews and social media posts showed that the reported suspect, Ryan Routh, 58, was a staunch supporter of Ukraine who had traveled there after Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Ukrainian officials said they had nothing to do with him, and accused Moscow of seizing on the link for propaganda purposes. The Kremlin, for its part, implied there was a link between the assassination attempt and U.S. support for Kyiv, saying “playing with fire has its consequences”.
The apparent attempt on Trump’s life came just two months after he was grazed in the right ear when a gunman fired on him at a campaign rally. That shooter was killed in return fire by security agents.
Both incidents highlight the challenge of keeping presidential candidates safe in a febrile campaign, with just over seven weeks to go before the Nov. 5 election.
“I would like to thank everyone for your concern and well wishes – It was certainly an interesting day!,” Trump said on social media late on Sunday, thanking Secret Service and police for keeping him safe.
Trump’s election opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, said on X: “Violence has no place in America.”
President Joe Biden directed his team to ensure the Secret Service has the resources it needs to ensure Trump’s safety.
SUPPORTER OF UKRAINE
Routh, of Hawaii, was widely identified in U.S. media as the suspect although he was not immediately named by law enforcement. Late on Sunday, Secret Service and Homeland Security agents searched a home in Greensboro, North Carolina, which a neighbor told Reuters had belonged to Routh.
Evidence of Routh’s support for Ukraine quickly emerged after Sunday’s incident, including footage of him in 2022 speaking to Newsweek Romania in Kyiv, where he had set up a tent with flags of countries representing volunteers who died in Ukraine.
He said he had aimed to help recruit foreign fighters, having been rejected as too old to volunteer himself.
“A lot of the other conflicts are grey but this conflict is definitely black and white. This is about good versus evil,” Routh said, showing emotion as he pleaded to the camera in a shirt with American flag symbols.
“If the governments will not send their official military, then we, civilians, have to pick up the torch.”
The New York Times reported that it had also interviewed Routh, in 2023, when Routh said he was trying to recruit former fighters from Afghanistan to bring them to Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials said they had nothing to do with him.
Routh had “never been part of, associated with, or linked to the International Legion in any capacity,” the unit which includes foreign volunteers for Ukrainian forces told Reuters.
A legion official told CNN that Routh had sent emails offering to recruit foreign volunteers, but Ukraine’s military thought he was “delusional” and did not take the offers seriously.
“We didn’t even answer. There was nothing to answer to. He was never part of the Legion and didn’t cooperate with us in any way,” Oleksandr Shaguri, an officer of the Foreigners Coordination Department of the Land Forces Command, told CNN.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he was glad to hear Trump was safe, and that there was no place for violence in politics anywhere.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov appeared to link the apparent attempt to Washington’s support for Ukraine.
“It is not us who should be thinking, it is the U.S. intelligence services who should be thinking. In any case, playing with fire has its consequences,” Peskov said when asked about the attempted assassination.
The head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, Andriy Kovalenko, said Moscow was “using another assassination attempt on Trump against Ukraine in the information field”.
“The enemy will launch a number of conspiracy theories about the ‘Ukrainian trace’. Of course, all of this is a lie.”
Profiles on X, Facebook and LinkedIn in the name of Routh contained messages of support for Ukraine as well as statements describing Trump as a threat to U.S. democracy.
“@POTUS Your campaign should be called something like KADAF. Keep America democratic and free. Trumps should be MASA …make Americans slaves again master. DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose,” read a post on X, tagging President Biden.
Reuters was not able to confirm that the accounts belonged to the suspect, and law enforcement agencies declined to comment. Public access to the Facebook and X profiles was removed hours after Sunday’s incident.
GUN BARREL IN BUSHES
Secret Service agents fired on a man spotted in bushes near the edge of Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course on Sunday, a few hundred yards from where Trump was playing. The suspect was arrested after fleeing the scene in a car, leaving behind two backpacks and an AK-47-style assault rifle.
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said a Secret Service agent protecting Trump saw a rifle barrel poking out from bushes about 400 to 500 yards (365 to 460 meters) away from the former president as they cleared holes of potential threats.
Agents engaged the gunman, firing at least four shots.
Sheriff’s deputies in neighboring Martin County apprehended the suspect on I-95 about 40 miles (65 km) from the golf course.
Harris has repeatedly said that a second Trump term would threaten U.S. democracy and has vowed unwavering support for Ukraine in its struggle against Russia. Trump, asked during a debate last week whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war, said that he wanted it to end.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery in Washington and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Additional reporting by Alexandra Ulmer in San Francisco, California; Mike Stone, Douglas Gillison, Richard Cowan, Jason Lange and Jeff Mason in Washington; Brad Brooks in Longmont, Colorado; Helen Coster in New York; Jonathan Drake in Greensboro, North Carolina; Anastasiia Malenko in KyivWriting by David Lawder and Peter Graff;Editing by Noeleen Walder, Lincoln Feast, Sharon Singleton and Andrew Heavens)
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