In April 2022, a little over a month after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a stream of middle-aged European and American volunteers were passing through Poland on their way into Ukraine. There was the retired attorney delivering sweets to Ukrainian orphanages; the Irish former French Foreign Legion soldier carrying luggage for refugees, and the Englishman who had moved from France to help rescue pets. One American in his 60s was transporting dead frozen chicks from Poland to a zoo in western Ukraine. They called themselves the “silent army” and the “get-off-the-couch crew”.
Ryan Wesley Routh was like them but less subtle: he was standing in the frenzied station at Przemyśl draped in a US flag. He had thin, blondish hair and a zealous gleam in his eyes, and said he had arrived at the station at 7.30am having travelled for four days – from Hawaii, to Los Angeles, to Krakow, to Przemyśl. Next stop: Ukraine.
