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Ryan Routh, the man named in multiple media reports as a suspect in an alleged assassination attempt on Donald Trump on Sunday, was one of thousands of foreign volunteers who went to Ukraine following Russia’s large-scale invasion in February 2022.

But when he arrived in the Polish border town of Medyka, he was turned away at the office of the Ukrainian International Legion. “They said, ‘You’re 56, you’re old and you have no experience,'” Routh, speaking from Hawaii, said in an interview with the Financial Times last year. “So why don’t you recruit and coordinate?”

On Sunday, police officers arrested a man who was allegedly hiding in bushes on the outskirts of the Trump International Golf Club in Florida. In the bushes they found an AK-47 rifle with a scope, two backpacks and a GoPro camera. US and international media widely identified the man as Routh.

The 58-year-old’s past views and political activities are now being investigated to obtain clues as to possible motives for an attack on the US presidential candidate.

After being turned away by Ukrainian forces, Routh, who had previously worked in construction and lived in Hawaii, went to Kyiv “to coordinate the volunteers” and set up a tent in the capital’s Maidan Square.

There he was often seen in a red, white and blue T-shirt with a star pattern, hanging on a plywood board the flags of all the countries whose civilian volunteers were fighting on Ukraine’s side.

“My original goal was to support the foreign fighters and foreigners who were there sacrificing their time, energy and lives to support Ukraine,” he said. “I wanted to put up flags in the yard for them.”

He also posted leaflets in Kyiv’s central square offering $1,200 to foreigners who take up arms against Russia. The contact information on the leaflets was his own, and military recruiters at the time said he had no official connection to Ukraine’s growing international legion.

Tens of thousands of foreigners flocked to Ukraine in the first months of the Russian invasion after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly appealed to “citizens of the world, friends of Ukraine, peace and democracy” to help his country fight a much larger and better-equipped enemy.

But most of those who showed up in Kyiv were not battle-hardened former NATO soldiers. Like Routh, they lacked military experience and were unsure how to navigate a foreign country.

Routh was also turned away from a branch of the International Legion linked to Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, GUR, said a person who knew him and was formerly associated with that unit. The person described Routh as “a bit too much” for them and the Legion, citing his erratic behavior. The International Legion of Ukraine declined to comment.

Speaking to the FT, Routh described a series of clashes with Ukrainian police, city authorities and others over the installation of the makeshift memorial and tent on the Maidan.

“The police destroyed it (the plywood monument) and said, ‘You can’t do that here,'” Routh said. He then moved the monument to a nearby site and also erected a makeshift “Flags of the Fallen” monument with paper flags commemorating Ukrainians killed in the war, which still stands there today.

The American also told the FT he was working to get thousands of Afghan soldiers who fled the country after the Taliban took power in 2021 to fight on Kyiv’s side. “We have 20,000 Afghan soldiers sitting around doing nothing,” Routh said, and they could be recruited to fight “so that this war doesn’t drag on for years.”

The FT was unable to independently verify the claim at the time. A person who knew Routh in Kyiv said on Monday that he had kept “a database” of Afghan soldiers, but his plan was viewed as far-fetched and rejected by officials of the Ukrainian International Legion.

When asked why he went to Ukraine as a volunteer, Routh said at the time: “For me, it’s actually a no-brainer. I’m pretty amazed that not everyone is there.”

Additional reporting by Isobel Koshiw in Kyiv