IIn April 2022, just over a month after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, middle-aged Western volunteers passed through Poland and entered Ukraine one after another. A former lawyer delivering sweets to Ukrainian orphanages, an Irish former French Foreign Legion soldier carrying refugee luggage, a British man who had moved from France to help with pet rescue work, etc. An American man in his 60s was transporting frozen dead chicks from Poland to a zoo in western Ukraine. They called themselves the “Silent Army” and the “Get Up from the Couch Crew.”
Ryan Wesley Rouse was like them, but less reserved. Wrapped in an American flag, he stood in the noisy train station in Przemysl. He had light blond hair and a spark of enthusiasm in his eyes, and he told me he’d traveled from Hawaii to Los Angeles to Krakow to Przemysl in four days, arriving at the station at 7:30 a.m. His next stop was Ukraine.
“It’s a one-way ticket,” he said. “I’m going to die here.”
Ukrainian officials have largely denied the allegations against Routh, who is accused of trying to assassinate Donald Trump on a Florida golf course on Sunday. An official told CNN that Routh had contacted the Ukrainian military with “delusional beliefs” and denied cooperating. “We didn’t even respond. There was no need to answer,” said Oleksandr Shagli, head of the Foreign Legion of Ukraine.
The Kremlin said Monday that Routh’s ties to Ukraine show that “playing with fire” has consequences – a reference to US support for Ukraine against Russia. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the incident, saying there is no place for political violence anywhere and that he was “happy to hear that Donald Trump is safe and unharmed.”
Routh’s son, Oran, confirmed to the Guardian on Sunday that his father had been active in supporting Ukraine, giving interviews to several media outlets and posting frequently on social media about it.
At Przemysl station, Raus announced that he was volunteering for the “International Brigade” of foreign fighters in Ukraine, explaining that he had brought a bulletproof vest and helmet with him, but with no military experience he expected to be rejected. Asked if he was prepared to kill people, he replied, “I would do that all day.” “But if I kill two or three people, that won’t change the course of the war. Inspiring thousands of people will change the situation,” he added.
He had no ties to Ukraine. His plan was to plant the flags of all the countries in central Kiev and form a human chain around them, declaring, in his words, “Putin, I’m here.”
“If I’m not gonna shoot the gun, I’m gonna at least cheer you on. Go for it team,” he said.
He calculated that if Russia bombed his protest site, it would be attacking something that represents the world community, which would trigger global action against Russia.
He said: “Thousands of civilians from different countries need to join arms in the center of Kiev and shout: this is not right. If Putin is comfortable killing Ukrainians, he should kill people from other countries too. Starting with me.”
He also said he was disappointed that “thousands of civilians are not here right now and standing up with the Ukrainian people, like me, to stop this atrocity.”
He said: “Ukraine is a civilised society. Apparently Russia is not. Apparently Russia is barbaric and stupid. It’s 2022, not the time of Hitler or the First World War. We should all be educated and intelligent, but apparently Putin does not know the difference between good and evil.”
Rouse said he quit his job at a construction company in Hawaii and spent a month “winding down his business” and tying up all the loose ends in order to leave town. He had a wife and three children at the time.
“The children can survive on their own. They don’t need their father anymore,” he says.
One of his sons was “extremely angry” about him going to Ukraine, he said. “He wants me to stay alive, but this is more important. All previous wars have been grey. This situation is black and white.”
Routh’s political leanings are not considered to be clearly partisan: he is reported to be a registered Democrat in North Carolina, but has also reportedly indicated on social media that he voted for Trump in 2016 and has voiced support for both Republican candidates Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy.
But one loyalty he made clear was his firm resolve that if he was killed, he would die wrapped in the American flag.
“If the Russians are going to kill me, I want to make sure they know who they’re killing,” he said, pointing to the flag. “I’m an American.”
