<p>Last year I was working on an article about foreign fighters and volunteers in Ukraine. The piece focused on people who were not qualified to be allowed anywhere near the battlefield in a US-led war and yet were fighting on the front against Russia, with access to weapons and military equipment.</p>.<p>Among the people I interviewed: Ryan Wesley Routh, the 58-year-old man that the FBI is investigating in what it is calling an assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump on Sunday.</p>.<p>I was put in touch with Routh through my old colleague and friend from Kabul, Najim Rahim. Through the strange nexus of combatants as one war ended and another began, he had learned of Routh through a source of his in Iran, a former Afghan special operations soldier who was trying to get out of Iran and fight in Ukraine.</p>.<p>Routh, who had spent some time in Ukraine trying to raise support for the war, was seeking recruits from among Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban. And so the former Afghan soldier reckoned Routh could get him to the Ukrainian front. (Anything, even war, was better than the conditions in Iran for Afghans after the Taliban retook Kabul in August of 2021).</p>.<p>There were a few complications. Routh, a former construction worker from Greensboro, North Carolina, said he never fought in Ukraine -- he was too old and he had no military experience.</p>.<p>But like many foreign volunteers who showed up at Ukraine's border in the war's early months, he was eager to cast aside his former life for something far more exciting and make a name for himself.</p>.Suspected gunman Ryan Wesley Routh said he was willing to fight and die in Ukraine.<p>"In my opinion everyone should be there supporting the Ukrainians," he told me, his voice urgent, exasperated and a little suspicious over the phone.</p>.<p>When I talked to Routh in March of last year, he had compiled a list of hundreds of Afghans spread between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan whom he wanted to fly, somehow, to Ukraine. Routh told one Afghan he was helping "I am just a civilian."</p>.<p>My conversation with Routh was brief. He was in Washington, D.C., he said, and had planned for a two-hour meeting with some congressmen about Ukraine (it's unclear if that meeting ever happened).</p>.<p>By the time I got off the phone with Routh some minutes later it was clear he was in way over his head.</p>.<p>He talked of buying off corrupt officials, forging passports and doing whatever it takes to get his Afghan cadre to Ukraine, but he had no real way to accomplish his goals. At one point he mentioned arranging a U.S. military transport plane from Iraq to Poland with Afghan refugees willing to fight.</p>.<p>I shook my head. It sounded ridiculous and indeed it was, but the tone in Routh's voice said otherwise. He was going to back Ukraine's war effort, no matter what.</p>.<p>Like many of the volunteers I interviewed, he fell off the map again. Until Sunday.</p>
<p>Last year I was working on an article about foreign fighters and volunteers in Ukraine. The piece focused on people who were not qualified to be allowed anywhere near the battlefield in a US-led war and yet were fighting on the front against Russia, with access to weapons and military equipment.</p>.<p>Among the people I interviewed: Ryan Wesley Routh, the 58-year-old man that the FBI is investigating in what it is calling an assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump on Sunday.</p>.<p>I was put in touch with Routh through my old colleague and friend from Kabul, Najim Rahim. Through the strange nexus of combatants as one war ended and another began, he had learned of Routh through a source of his in Iran, a former Afghan special operations soldier who was trying to get out of Iran and fight in Ukraine.</p>.<p>Routh, who had spent some time in Ukraine trying to raise support for the war, was seeking recruits from among Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban. And so the former Afghan soldier reckoned Routh could get him to the Ukrainian front. (Anything, even war, was better than the conditions in Iran for Afghans after the Taliban retook Kabul in August of 2021).</p>.<p>There were a few complications. Routh, a former construction worker from Greensboro, North Carolina, said he never fought in Ukraine -- he was too old and he had no military experience.</p>.<p>But like many foreign volunteers who showed up at Ukraine's border in the war's early months, he was eager to cast aside his former life for something far more exciting and make a name for himself.</p>.Suspected gunman Ryan Wesley Routh said he was willing to fight and die in Ukraine.<p>"In my opinion everyone should be there supporting the Ukrainians," he told me, his voice urgent, exasperated and a little suspicious over the phone.</p>.<p>When I talked to Routh in March of last year, he had compiled a list of hundreds of Afghans spread between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan whom he wanted to fly, somehow, to Ukraine. Routh told one Afghan he was helping "I am just a civilian."</p>.<p>My conversation with Routh was brief. He was in Washington, D.C., he said, and had planned for a two-hour meeting with some congressmen about Ukraine (it's unclear if that meeting ever happened).</p>.<p>By the time I got off the phone with Routh some minutes later it was clear he was in way over his head.</p>.<p>He talked of buying off corrupt officials, forging passports and doing whatever it takes to get his Afghan cadre to Ukraine, but he had no real way to accomplish his goals. At one point he mentioned arranging a U.S. military transport plane from Iraq to Poland with Afghan refugees willing to fight.</p>.<p>I shook my head. It sounded ridiculous and indeed it was, but the tone in Routh's voice said otherwise. He was going to back Ukraine's war effort, no matter what.</p>.<p>Like many of the volunteers I interviewed, he fell off the map again. Until Sunday.</p>