Pro-Kremlin websites and social media accounts are promulgating the unsubstantiated claim that Ukraine orchestrated a potential assassination attempt on Donald Trump, as the Senate convenes a hearing with tech industry leaders about Russia’s and other U.S. adversaries’ efforts to meddle in the election.
Shortly after Ryan Wesley Routh was identified as the suspect believed to have pointed a rifle toward a Florida golf course where Trump was playing Sunday, Russian state media outlets and officials on social media painted the 58-year-old as an agent working on behalf of Kyiv. Routh’s social media posts show he was a staunch supporter of Ukrainewho traveled there and attempted to join the war effort, but Ukrainian government officials have denied that he had any links to the government or military.
The claims were soon echoed by conservative commentators in the United States, according to an analysis from the company NewsGuard. Influencer Tim Pool called for an investigation into whether Ukraine was involved in the apparent attempt on Trump’s life. Pool said in a YouTube video that it would be “ridiculous, partisan and stupid” to overlook Ukraine’s efforts to undermine Trump.
“The primary motive behind this narrative is to undermine Western support for Ukraine, which is a common thread we see across all narratives advanced by Russia,” said McKenzie Sadeghi, NewsGuard’s AI and foreign influence editor.
Russia’s efforts to shape the narrative around the latest incident of political violence in the United States come as law enforcement officials and tech companies are trying to counter the Kremlin’s intensifying attempts to use social media to interfere in the election. With less than 50 days until the polls close, it is unclear whether the measures are substantial enough to counter Russia’s increasingly sophisticated tactics.
On Wednesday, Microsoft president Brad Smith, Google president and chief legal officer Kent Walker and Meta president of global affairs Nick Clegg faced questions from the Senate Intelligence Committee about their efforts to defend against attempts from Russia, as well as Iran and China, to shape online political discourse. Ahead of the hearing, Microsoft released new research that showed Russia was stepping up efforts to undermine the Harris-Walz campaign, including by circulating a video that falsely accused Vice President Kamala Harris of paralyzing a girl in a hit-and-run.
The Justice Department earlier this month charged two Russian media executives in an alleged scheme to funnel almost $10 million to a Tennessee-based Tenet Media, which made social media videos that echoed Russian state propaganda and attracted 16 million views on YouTube alone. Pool had a contract with Tenet, which paid him $100,000 per episode for a weekly show.
Pool did not immediately respond to a request about his call for an investigation into Ukraine’s role in Sunday’s potential assassination attempt on Trump. In a post on X, he said if the allegations in the Justice Department indictment were true, he and other Tenet commentators “were deceived and are victims,” adding that he had “full editorial control” of the show.
The Russian claims about Routh’s links to Ukraine appeared to originate in a Monday tweet from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, according to NewsGuard. In a post, he wrote that he wondered what would happen if turned out Routh “was himself hired by the neo-nazi regime in Kiev for this assassination attempt?” That post generated more than 750,000 views, according to NewsGuard.
Other pro-Russian websites and social media accounts then restated and spread that statement, NewsGuard found. The pro-Russian account BRICS News wrote that Medvedev said Routh “was acting under Ukraine’s direction.”