The guy was hanging out in that spot for over 12 hours. The New York Times reporter apparently interviewed Routh in 2023 via a referral from a friend of his in Kabul. Routh spent time in Ukraine:

Mr. Routh, who had spent some time in Ukraine trying to raise support for the war, was seeking recruits from among Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban. And so the former Afghan soldier reckoned Mr. Routh could get him to the Ukrainian front. (Anything, even war, was better than the conditions in Iran for Afghans after the Taliban retook Kabul in August of 2021.)

There were a few complications. Mr. Routh, a former construction worker from Greensboro, N. C., said he never fought in Ukraine himself — he was too old and had no military experience.

But like many foreign volunteers who showed up at Ukraine’s border in the war’s early months, he was eager to cast aside his former life for something far more exciting and make a name for himself.

“In my opinion everyone should be there supporting the Ukrainians,” he told me, his voice urgent, exasperated and a little suspicious over the phone.

The reporter says that "By the time I got off the phone with Mr. Routh some minutes later, it was clear he was in way over his head." It sounds like he is politely not saying that Mr. Routh is out of his mind.

My conjecture here is that he's angry that Trump would throw Ukraine to the Russians if he were elected.