Laura Loomer: I believed that Ukraine started the war

Laura Loomer is one of the most influential – and controversial – figures in America's MAGA movement. Self-titled "the most banned woman in the world", she has repeatedly been suspended by major social media platforms for hate speech and anti-Muslim remarks. At the same time, she remains one of Donald Trump's closest far-right influencers, with significant sway over part of the US conservative base.

For years, Loomer was a vocal critic of Ukraine. She echoed some of the Kremlin's most persistent propaganda narratives, describing Ukraine as a "Nazi state", the Azov Brigade as "neo-Nazi", and Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a "criminal". She even claimed that Ukraine had started the war. Today, she publicly admits she was wrong and says she fell victim to Russian propaganda.

Her rhetoric has undergone a dramatic shift. Perhaps she genuinely realised she was wrong and expressed regret. Or perhaps this is to do with divisions within the MAGA movement, in which Tucker Carlson has already occupied the pro-Russian niche, leaving Loomer to seek her own space and become a situational ally of Ukraine.

After travelling to Kyiv, visiting frontline communities and sites hit by Russian strikes, Loomer declared that the United States should support Ukraine, called for Kyiv to receive Patriot missiles, and said she believes US representatives should travel to Kyiv for talks, not just Moscow. In her view, a Ukrainian victory would serve America's national interests, and Russia has become a direct enemy of the United States.

In this interview with Ukrainska Pravda, Loomer explains what made her rethink her views, why she blames Telegram and RT for shaping her perception of the war, and what she would say to Donald Trump after her first – but not, she says, her last – visit to Ukraine.

On the influence of Russian propaganda

You were opposed to support for Ukraine for years, and you recently said you realised that you were influenced by Russian propaganda. How did Russian narratives reach you? Was it through social media, politicians, or something else?

There was a lot of censorship in the United States. And as a conservative, I was banned on all social media for exposing anti-Semitism [according to the American media, Laura Loomer was banned for hate speech – UP]. And the Democrats were working with the big tech social media companies to silence people who supported President Trump.

As a result of that, I had no social media for a while except for Telegram. And as you know, Telegram was originally founded by a Russian. But even though the Russian – I think his name is Pavel Durov – even though he's in exile, the Russians still use Telegram as their main source of disinformation and their main way to distribute this propaganda. So I had been consuming a lot of my news on Telegram. And as a result – when you look at when Joe Biden was sworn into office in 2021, the war broke out in 2022, I didn't get my Twitter account back till 2022 [when Twitter was bought by Elon Musk and renamed X – UP] and I still remained banned on all those social sites. For me, a lot of my coverage in the news that I was receiving about the war was coming from RT [Russia Today, a Russian state propaganda media outlet – UP].

What specific claims did you believe that you now consider false?

Well, I believed that Ukraine started the war. I believed that Ukraine was a country full of Nazis. I believed that the Azov Battalion was full of a bunch of neo-Nazis. I believed that Zelenskyy was a cokehead. I mean, there are a lot of things I believed.

You have almost 2 million followers on Twitter now, and your posts shaped how many conservatives viewed Ukraine. Are you going to reconvince them somehow that you were wrong?

Well, I don't really have a way to change their minds. I can post what I'm posting, and ultimately it's up to other people, right? To come to see the light themselves. So people are going to have to do what I did, in the sense that they're going to have to admit they may have fallen for Russian propaganda and try to reconcile their views.

Some people will do that, some people will probably be too prideful to do that. So it's really going to be something that people have to come to terms with on their own individually.

Your fellow bloggers and influencers from the US are mostly pro-Russian. Maybe we can change their minds too, or maybe you can send them a message about how they can see Ukraine from a different perspective?

I don't think that we can change their mind. I think they are getting paid by Russia.

On her visit to Ukraine

You've visited areas affected by Russia in Kyiv, and you also travelled close to the front line. Was there a moment in Ukraine which changed your view on this war?

Yeah. I mean, seeing the devastation by the ballistic missiles and then also having to go to the bomb shelter myself – it really put things into perspective for me and opened up my eyes about the Ukrainian people having a right to defend themselves from Russia's aggression.

In 2024, you wrote, "I just really don't like Ukraine, never been there, but nothing good comes to mind when I think about Ukraine." What good things come to your mind now after visiting Ukraine?

Well, it's a beautiful country. I found the people that I've met to be nothing but kind and welcoming and very pro-America. For some reason, there's this narrative in the United States that the people in Ukraine are anti-American or that they don't like our country – and that couldn't be further from the truth. So, that's one.

Also two: I think it's a beautiful country despite all of the missile strikes and the Russians' efforts to destroy your infrastructure. I think that your country is very pretty and is a nice tourist location, but obviously the Russians have closed your airspace because they keep on firing drones and missiles.

So, you don't really have a tourist economy right now because people really can't visit unless they fly to Poland and then book a train. It's very inconvenient to get to Ukraine. But hopefully the war will end, and then people will be able to come see the country for themselves and realise how beautiful it is.

On MAGA

Your political influence comes largely from the MAGA movement. Have your followers criticised you because of the change in your position?

Yes. Some people are spreading a conspiracy theory that I'm paid by Ukraine. So, you know, people are now lying and saying that I'm being paid off to have this view, but that's just simply not true.

And if someone told you that you were paid, how would you respond to them?

"I'm not paid. Probably just Russian propaganda."

If President Trump asked for your opinion about Ukraine when you're back in the US, what would you tell him?

I would tell him that in my opinion, as somebody who has visited Ukraine, I think he should visit Ukraine in the future. I think that some of the peace talks should be held in Kyiv instead of Moscow. And I would also tell President Trump that I think that the United States should be pro-Ukraine in this fight. But I do believe that we already are. I mean, you saw our general, General [Dan] Caine, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth saying last week that they want Ukraine to win this war. They also said that Russia is supplying Iran with weapons to murder the US soldiers in Iran. And now, your President Zelenskyy has come out with intelligence that shows that Russia has been supplying the Iranians with satellite imagery that is helping them find and kill US soldiers.

From your perspective, what do you think the US representatives who took part in negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are getting wrong about Ukraine, and what should they do?

I mean, look, I don't want to speak for them because it's not appropriate for me to speak for them. I just personally think that the negotiations should be held in a neutral country.

First of all I don't think the negotiations should be held in Russia or Ukraine.

But I think that it doesn't really make sense why there have been so many meetings in Moscow and yet there really hasn't been a single meeting in Kyiv. Especially knowing that Putin is actively undermining the US by sending weapons to Iran and trying to kill US soldiers.

So I would just encourage them to either hold negotiations in Kyiv or hold negotiations in a neutral country. I don't think there should be any more meetings in Moscow.

On support for Ukraine

Last year you wrote that you didn't want any more of your tax dollars going to Ukraine, and today you tweeted that it's time for the US to give Ukraine access to Patriot missiles. It's been quite a shift. What changed your position?

Well, now that Russia is directly supplying weapons to Iran, we see that Ukraine is also an ally in combating Iran. The reality is that the Iranians are using Russian weapons to kill American soldiers and to attack the United States currently in this conflict. There's a problem because we already have depletion and deficiency in our Patriot missile supply here in the United States. So we need to have a conversation about what this looks like.

But at the same exact time, if the Ukrainians were able to help combat the stockpiling of weapons by the Iranians via the Russians just like they did yesterday or the day before, by blowing up a cargo ship that was carrying weapons from Russia to Iran – or from Iran to Russia rather – that helps, right? They blew up an Iranian tanker. So ultimately, if Ukraine falls, we're going to see Russia try to attack and conquer the other neighbouring European allied states. I know that Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but I'm sure that Russia would try to go to war with NATO. Then, if they succeeded in conquering those countries, they would set their eyes on the United States.

It seems like it would just be cheaper and more efficient to support the defeat of Russia now than have a full-scale war in the future when Russia decides to have their Greater Russia expansionalist empire on steroids. If they get to clean Ukraine as a scalp.

Do you think the drone deal between the US and Ukraine will change US-Ukrainian relations?

Yes, I do.

In your interview with President Zelenskyy, you mentioned that Ukraine doesn't communicate enough about how the deal can be useful for the US. What do you think should change?

I think that they need to emphasise that they are grateful more frequently. I think that they need to also do a better job from the President's Office and your Defence Ministry, and your media in general, highlighting this relationship, but also highlighting what Ukraine does for America.

It should be all over the place saying, "Oh, by the way, we stand with America so much that we just blew up an Iranian ship because we don't support killing US soldiers." They should be highlighting the fact that the Russians sent a delegation to the Ayatollah's funeral, but Ukraine did not. They should be showing how they're different from Russia, because Russia tries to say that they're the same. That's their whole argument for trying to conquer you, right? "Oh, they have no culture. Oh, they have nothing. They're the same. They're the same. They're the same. There's no Ukraine. There's no Ukraine." Well, then show them how you're different.

As we have seen, President Trump has been more critical of Vladimir Putin recently. Do you think his position on Ukraine has evolved as well?

I never want to speak for the president, because it would be inappropriate. But I think it's obvious that his tone has shifted. I asked President Zelenskyy about this. When I interviewed him, I said, "Oh wow, what happened? You went from getting yelled at by Donald Trump and JD Vance in the Oval Office, and now Donald Trump is praising you and he said your interview was very good and you're going to Lindsey Graham's funeral." And the president is praising Zelenskyy in Ankara, in Türkiye – it's a shift.

Look, Donald Trump is not stupid. You saw his TruthSocial post yesterday where Donald Trump clearly said something along the lines of, like, "Oh, it's been brought to my attention that China and Russia have been possibly selling weapons to the Iranians. These leaders assured me that it's certainly not true, and they better make sure they're telling me the truth or else they're going to have problems." He's not stupid, he knows that they're doing that. [Trump later said he trusted Xi and Putin's assurances that they are not supplying weapons – UP.] So at the end of the day, the United States is well aware of the fact that these adversaries are standing with Russia. They're not our friends.

But unfortunately, our geopolitics are also very tying, and the president has to be diplomatic.

What message do you want your audience to take away from this trip to Ukraine?

To open their eyes and try to reevaluate who our friends are and who our enemies are. And just apply some common sense to the state of the world.

If Russia is supplying weapons to the Iranians to kill US soldiers, and the Ukrainians are helping us manufacture drones so that we can have an even stronger drone stockpile, that clearly shows me that Ukraine is our ally and Russia is our enemy.

You don't see Ukraine amplifying Iranian Lego IRGC videos in their media, but you see the Russians amplifying and supporting them and glorifying these videos. So it's pretty obvious to me who's our ally in this war and who's our enemy.

Alina Poliakova, UP