Three days after Russia’s full-scale invasion, Zelensky called for “friends of peace and democracy” to join the fight from abroad, and they did so in their thousands.
Ukraine’s International Legion was born.
It was initially thought 20,000 volunteers were willing to sign up. Experts now think there are more than 4,000 foreign fighters in Ukraine.
Despite the fact Routh failed in his attempts to add to that number, his arrest in Florida has still given Kyiv a headache.
Lt Andriy Kovalenko, who’s from Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, warned Russia would use the assassination attempt for propaganda purposes.
“Playing with fire has its consequences,” was the response from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov when asked whether Ukraine could have been behind the plot.
On Russian state TV, host Olga Skabeyeva called Routh a “crazed fan of Zelensky, walking around with a machine gun”.
“There has been another attempt on Donald’s life, and the attempt is officially linked to Ukraine,” she added, making reference to an earlier effort by a gunman in Pennsylvania to shoot Trump in July.
A popular pro-Russian Telegram channel in Ukraine claimed the Ukrainian intelligence service was behind the assassination attempt. A similar account said the American had travelled to Ukraine to “recruit American mercenaries”.
No evidence has accompanied these claims.
“Of course, all this is a lie,” said Lt Kovalenko. “But information confrontation is a component of the war.”
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