(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Headline USA has obtained a trove of photos and videos featuring convicted would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh while he was in Ukraine in 2022. The records provide the most complete account of Routh’s activities there to date, though many questions remain.
EXCLUSIVE: We’ve obtained a trove of photos and videos featuring convicted would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh while he was in Ukraine in 2022. The records provide the most complete account of Routh’s activities there to date, though many questions remain.
Find the records here… pic.twitter.com/ydgUfAmmwf
— Headline USA (@HeadlineUSA) February 4, 2026
Routh, who’s set to be sentenced today for attempting to kill Trump in September 2024, traveled to Ukraine mere weeks after Russia invaded in late February 2022. He said in his 2023 self-published book, Ukraine’s Unwinnable War, that it took him about a month to wind down his construction business and acquire military gear. He flew to Poland and across to the Ukrainian border, winding up as a regular fixture at Maidan Square in Kyiv.
The North Carolina native revealed his motivation helping the warfighting effort in an interview with documentarian Eric Senunas in April 2022—published here for the first time.
“The war started and I think everyone in the world can agree it’s black and white, good versus evil. To me, it felt like everyone around the world should hop on the plane and go to Ukraine,” he said.
At 56 years old, Routh was deemed too old to fight. Therefore, “I had to go to plan B,” he said in his interview with Senunas.
“If I couldn’t fight, I’d have to bring in more fighters to the fight, and more equipment and more support.”
According to his self-published book, Routh and with his “best partner” — an Israeli who’s yet to be identified — worked to help place recruits in various Ukrainian military units.
“I went to city hall and after several days got verbal permission to set up a tent at Independence Square as a volunteer center. So I purchased a tent and made signs and banners and set up a hub off to the side in the grass. It was a successful hub for a matter of 2 or 3 weeks until the police one day balled up my tent and threw it away,” Routh wrote in his book.
Days later, Routh said that he and other activists staged a demonstration for the soldiers stranded at the Azovstal Steel Plant, a vast industrial complex in the city of Mariupol that came under heavy Russian bombardment in spring 2022. At that event, Routh was filmed in a commercial for the Azov Brigade — a unit in the Ukrainian military that began in 2014 as a militia with ties to the country’s neo-Nazi movement. Two months before Routh appeared in that commercial, the DHS issued a bulletin warning that the Azov Brigade was recruiting right-wing extremists from America to join its cause.
Like his numerous encounters with law enforcement in the U.S., Routh managed to avoid jail. His fellow demonstrators apparently did not.
According to his book, Routh then embarked on a project to supply Ukraine with drones. As in his recruiting efforts, he said that he was unsuccessful in this endeavor as well.
At first, Routh said that he assembled a team of international engineers, including at least one Iranian. They had bandied about ideas for producing drones, but didn’t follow through on any of them. Frustrated with the inaction, Routh said that he set out to build his own drone.
“In the end, I had to build my own drone based on all the ideas that were presented and mesh and meld it all together, using only what materials were available in a war-torn country. Most suppliers were back alley secret meetings for security, making sourcing parts hard,” he said.
His book says that city officials wouldn’t allow drone testing in Kyiv, which forced Routh to take all his equipment in a supply van to the front line in Mykolaiv. Military officials there weren’t keen on allowing him to test his makeshift drone, either.
Apparently other volunteers were frustrated with the Ukrainian officials, too. Routh surreptitiously recorded international fighters talking about how badly the warfighting efforts were going at the time.
“I was like, ‘What’s the grid coordinates?’ They’re like, ‘We don’t know.’ I was like, ‘How the fuck do you not know?’” one volunteer recounted, speaking about a time when he and his crew were taking fire from the Russians.
EXCLUSIVE: We’ve obtained a video that would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh surreptitiously recorded in Ukraine in early 2022. The footage shows volunteer fighters complaining about how badly the warfighting efforts were going against Russia.
“I was like, ‘What’s the grid… pic.twitter.com/EzhELS9WPL
— Headline USA (@HeadlineUSA) February 4, 2026
Two volunteers even said the Ukrainians were stealing from them.
“They stole one of my bags … At least they just got old clothes and shoes, but it’s still a few hundred dollars’ worth of equipment,” one volunteer, who had an American accent, can be heard saying.
“I had 6,000 pounds of gear stolen outside of the battalion HQ,” another volunteer with a British accent said.
Routh returned to the U.S. that summer. However, he maintained contact with some of the people he met abroad—including an apparent Ukrainian from whom he tried to buy a rocket launcher. Routh’s attempted purchase was revealed by the Justice Department last year, but Headline USA has obtained a screenshot of the text conversation—as well as the reaction from the Ukrainian after Routh tried killing Trump in September 2024.
“I thought he [was] kidding,” the Ukrainian texted to journalist Kate Jones, who provided the interaction to this reporter. “Some one give [sic] him a rifle and inform about schedule.. someone from inside.”
I’ve obtained texts between Routh and the Ukrainian he was trying to buy a rocket launcher from.
The Ukrainian sent a screenshot of the interaction to someone else, saying he thought Routh was kidding.
The Ukrainian also thought someone informed Routh about Trump’s schedule pic.twitter.com/pvd3ubPhIq— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) February 4, 2026
Jones, who texted with Routh but never met him in person, also provided texts of her trying to quell Routh’s fears about another Trump presidency—by, among other things, explaining that Trump provided military aid and training to Ukraine during his first term.
Some 17 months later, Routh has contacts pleading for leniency on his behalf to Judge Aileen Cannon. A Ukrainian named Mariia Riznyk told Judge Cannon that Routh saved her life in early 2022, while an ex-Afghanistan National Army commando named Mohammadullah Ahmadi called Routh “a man of immense compassion and selflessness.”
Routh’s attorney has asked Judge Cannon for a 20 year sentence, while the DOJ seeks life.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
