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Ryan Routh, the man named in multiple media outlets as a suspect in an alleged assassination attempt on Donald Trump on Sunday, was one of thousands of foreign volunteers who traveled to Ukraine after the large-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.

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

On Sunday, law enforcement officers arrested a man they said was hiding in the bushes bordering Trump International Golf Club in Florida. They found an AK-47-style rifle with a scope, two backpacks and a GoPro camera in the bushes. U.S. and international media have widely identified the man as Routh.

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

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

There, often pictured wearing a red, white and blue T-shirt covered in stars, he hung the plywood flags of each country where citizens volunteered to fight on the Ukrainian side.

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

He also posted flyers around Kiev’s central square offering $1,200 to foreigners who would take up arms against Russia. The flyers listed his contact information, and military recruiters at the time said he had no official connection to Ukraine’s emerging international legion.

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

But most of those who came to Kiev were not seasoned former NATO soldiers. They looked like Routh, had no military experience and did not know how to behave in a foreign country.

Routh was also rejected by a branch of the International Legion affiliated with Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence directorate, a person who knew him and was previously associated with that unit said. The person described Routh as “a bit too much” for them and the legion, citing his erratic behavior. The Ukrainian International Legion declined to comment.

Speaking to the FT, Routh described a series of confrontations with Ukrainian police, city authorities and others over the placement of the makeshift monument and tent on the Maidan.

“The police tore it (the plywood monument) down and said, ‘You can’t do it here,'” Routh said. He then moved the monument to a nearby location and also put together a makeshift “Flags of the Fallen” monument with paper flags to commemorate Ukrainians who died in the war, which still stands today.

The American also told the FT that he was working to get thousands of Afghan soldiers who fled the country after the Taliban takeover in 2021 to fight on the Kiev 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 could not independently verify the claim at the time. A person who knew Routh in Kiev said on Monday that he had maintained a “database” of Afghan soldiers, but his plan was considered far-fetched and dismissed by officials at Ukraine’s International Legion.

When asked why he went to Ukraine to volunteer, Routh said at the time, “For me it’s a no-brainer. I’m pretty shocked that everyone isn’t there.”

Additional reporting by Isobel Koshiw in Kiev