Ryan Wesley Routh, whom AFP interviewed in Kyiv in 2022 where he had traveled to support the war effort, was named by US media as the alleged would-be assassin of Donald Trump.
US media reported that Routh, 58, was arrested when US Secret Service officials “opened fire on a gunman” holding an AK-47 style weapon at the boundary of Trump’s Florida golf property, where the former president was playing on Sunday.
The guy bolted from the foliage he was hiding in and fled in a black automobile before being apprehended by officials.
CNN and CBS reported. Routh was a self-employed affordable house builder in Hawaii with a decades-long jail record. He frequently wrote on politics and current events, occasionally criticizing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Routh offered support for Ukraine’s resistance against Russia’s invasion.
“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,” Routh said in an X post in March 2022, according to the New York Times, which also interviewed him.
AFP interviewed Routh in Kyiv in late April 2022, while he was taking part in a demonstration in support of Ukrainians trapped in the port city of Mariupol.
“Putin is a terrorist, and he needs to be ended, so we need everybody from around the world to stop what they are doing and come here now,” he told AFP at the time.
The United States has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022.
President Joe Biden will be replaced next January either by his Vice President Kamala Harris, who has indicated she will continue his policies of backing Ukraine, or by Trump, who would not say at a debate earlier this week whether he wanted Kyiv to win the war.