From Conspiracy to the Front Line
Laura Loomer, a close ally of President Donald Trump with a large online following, has made a dramatic and public reversal on Ukraine — admitting she spent years spreading falsehoods amplified by Russian sources and urging fellow conservatives to think critically about where their information comes from.
'I've come to realize I was bamboozled by Russian propaganda and I came to believe a lot of untrue things about Ukraine,' Loomer told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a recorded interview for her Rumble show. 'I used to think that this was a country full of Nazis.'
The turnaround came after Loomer traveled to Ukraine, visited areas close to the front line in the country's east, and sat down with top Ukrainian officials. Her interview with the Associated Press had to be moved to an underground bomb shelter when Kyiv faced a ballistic missile attack mid-conversation.
How It Happened
Loomer traced her indoctrination to her banning from American social media platforms, which pushed her toward Telegram — a platform where Russian state media circulates widely. She said Russian propagandists were 'very good at capitalizing on people's rage,' and acknowledged she was 'very angry' about the 2020 election at the time.
She also pointed to conservative podcasters, naming Tucker Carlson specifically, whose rhetoric she said was being amplified by Russian sources as those same figures began, in her words, to 'turn on President Trump.'
'You don't need to listen to a podcaster and let them influence your opinion about a country,' she told the AP. 'You can look at those facts yourself.'
Influence With Trump Remains Intact
Loomer said she spoke with Trump by phone after her meeting with Zelenskyy and expects to meet the president in person upon returning to the United States. Trump and Zelenskyy are scheduled to meet Tuesday in Washington. Loomer said the timing of her trip was already shifting the conversation.
'It's looking good for Ukraine, right?' she said. 'Going into this meeting next week at the Oval Office is looking pretty good.'
Ukrainian officials welcomed the visit openly. Deputy Prime Minister Tetyana Berezhna told the AP: 'Laura is very powerful and she's very authoritative in the U.S., so I hope that everything she has seen by her own eyes will help her to spread the truth when she is back at the U.S.'
Zelenskyy's office added on social media: 'It takes courage to come to Ukraine and not be deterred by Russian propaganda or air raid sirens.'
The Broader Stakes
Loomer's reversal is more than a personal reckoning — it is a signal to the MAGA coalition that Russian information operations have penetrated deeply into right-leaning media ecosystems. When a Trump loyalist who helped prompt a purge of the National Security Council staff stands in a Kyiv bomb shelter and says she was deceived, the free-market, America-first movement has to take stock of what it has been consuming.
Sovereignty, order, and clear-eyed intelligence are foundational to any serious national security posture. Propaganda that clouds those judgments — regardless of its origin — is a tax on American strategic clarity. The market for truth, it turns out, still punishes bad information. Loomer's public correction is a data point the right should not ignore.
