Azov and the International Legion denied any connection with Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspect in the shooting near Donald Trump’s golf club.
Information about Raut’s involvement with Azov was spread through a video from a rally in Kyiv in support of the brigade from 2022 – he is in this video.
And Raut’s alleged involvement in the International Legion was brought up through an action where he set up a tent with flags of countries representing volunteers who died in Ukraine. He also wanted to recruit fighters for the legion, but his proposal was ignored.
We believe that the dissemination of the narrative about a possible connection between Azov and Ryan Wesley Routt plays into the hands of Russian propaganda and discredits the 12th Special Forces Brigade Azov of the National Guard of Ukraine and the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine as a whole,” the brigade noted.
Raut’s connection with the International Legion began through an event in 2022, where he set up a tent with flags of countries representing volunteers who died in Ukraine.
A 2022 video in support of the Mariupol garrison in Kyiv, linked to the Donald Trump Assassination attempt tracked by Ryan Wesley Routh, is circulating on social media.
We would like to officially state that Ryan Wesley Routh has no connection to Azov and has…
– Azov Brigade (@azov_media) September 16, 2024
Back then, in an interview with journalists, Raut stated that he wanted to help recruit foreign fighters for the legion, since he was not accepted as a volunteer due to his age, Reuters writes.
Legion officials told Reuters that Raut “was never part of the International Legion, was not associated with it or linked to it in any way.”
A Legion spokesman also confirmed to CNN that Raut had sent emails offering to recruit foreign volunteers, but that the Ukrainian military did not take the offers seriously.
On the afternoon of September 15, a shooting took place near Donald Trump’s golf club in Florida; the presidential candidate himself was not injured. The suspect in the shooting is 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh. He works as an affordable housing developer in Hawaii and has previously been a frequent critic of Trump and has also expressed support for Ukraine.
AFP also recalls interviewing Raut in Kyiv in April 2022, when he was taking part in a demonstration in support of Ukrainians remaining in the blockaded Mariupol.
Putin is a terrorist and he must be stopped. So everyone must stop what they are doing and come here now, Raut said then.
Reuters reports that the New York Times also interviewed Routt in 2023 for a story about American volunteers supporting Ukraine’s war effort. Routt said at the time that he spent several months in Ukraine in 2022 and tried to recruit Afghan soldiers who had fled the Taliban to fight in Ukraine.
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.