Standing under the rafters of Ukraine’s oldest and holiest Orthodox Christian church, US right-wing influencer Laura Loomer on Wednesday confessed she had been misled by Russian propaganda and that Ukrainians aren’t Nazis but a people heroically fighting for their independence – a political U-turn that media in the war-torn former Soviet republic praised and reported at face value.
A self-described investigative journalist and ally of US President Donald Trump, Loomer made the comments published on her social media platforms during a visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and the premises of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery, an 11th-century religious complex overlooking the Dnipro River.
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Loomer told her 1.9+ million “X” followers that Russian attacks on Ukraine are evil and that the Russian Aerospace Forces in a June 15 raid on Kyiv hit the Lavra premises with Shahed kamikaze drones, setting fires, splitting iconostases, cracking meter-thick walls and blowing out windows. The church is part of a still-active monastery considered by most Orthodox Christians to be the forefront of their religion’s expansion into Europe and Russia.
“Vladimir Putin constantly portrays Russia as some kind of savior of Christianity. He likes to present himself [as such] and he says that Russia is going to de-Nazify Ukraine and that they need to invade Ukraine, because, well, they [the Putin regime in Russia] need to make it [Ukraine] a further part of their ‘Christian’ empire,” Loomer said in the 4-minute long, professionally edited video, including B-roll cuts of post-strike fires burning in a church and the Russian leader kissing an Orthodox Christian religious relic.
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For the stand-up inside the edifice, Loomer, a self-described “not very religious Jew,” wore a low-key, tan pant suit. She spoke bare-headed, without the traditional headscarf usually considered appropriate for women setting foot on Lavra premises.
The video was recorded inside the Dormition Cathedral, the Lavra’s main church, a structure erected in the 11th century and destroyed during WWII by retreating Soviet forces on Moscow’s orders. The building was a ruin until 2000 when the government of independent Ukraine rebuilt it.
“If you talk about Christianity so much, why would you ‘drone’ the oldest monastery in Ukraine?” Loomer asks as the video displays damage caused by the Russian weapon to a religious painting. “Vladimir Putin and Russian soldiers tried to drone-strike Jesus Christ…the side of the Virgin Mary caught fire… and ended up protecting Jesus.”
“I’m getting really sick and tired as an American, and as an ally to Christians, as someone who wants to preserve Judeo-Christian values, I’m getting really tired of seeing American influencers, people like Tucker Carlson, and people like Candace Owens… and members of the ‘Woke Reich’ claiming that Russia is the bastion of freedom and a bastion of hope, the ideal state for Christianity. Because you are not going to look me in the eyes and tell me that you are preserving Christianity by drone-striking the oldest monastery in Ukraine, and quite literally trying to blow Jesus Christ up with a Shahed drone,” Loomer said.
Loomer in September 2025 comments consistent with Trump rhetoric of the time said that Ukraine is a failed, non-democratic state under dictatorial leadership that must surrender to Russia on Russian terms. Ukraine is “a country full of Nazi apologists… I don’t want any more of my tax dollars going to Ukraine,” Loomer said in part.
In mid-June 2026, Loomer reversed that position, declaring that she had learned that she had been misinformed about Ukraine by malign actors and that now she considered herself a supporter of Ukraine.
In still images published by her and her team on Tuesday, Loomer is shown eating a McDonald’s cheeseburger with fries at an outlet next to Kyiv’s much-damaged Lukyanivka metro station, with the Kvadrat shopping center demolished by a Russian missile strike in the immediate background. The May 24 attack hit Ukraine with a reported 90 missiles and 600 drones in one of Russia’s most massive strikes of the war. At least four people were killed and more than 100 wounded in the overnight attacks concentrating on Kyiv.
A caption accompanying the images of Loomer eating the cheeseburger in warm weather praised “Ukrainian resilience” and condemned “Moscow… contempt for the very idea of a prosperous, Western-oriented Ukraine.”
Media in the Ukrainian capital, after more than four years of war, well-used to visits by Western public figures calculated as much to influence opinion back home as to fact-find on the ground in Ukraine, reported on Loomer’s visits to tourist sites in Kyiv generally neutrally but often with an undertone of praise for a person who in the past was misguided and supported Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, but now has had a righteous change of mind.
Ukraine’s major news weekly Zerkalo Tizhden, in its Thursday write-up of Loomer’s tour of the Lavra said: “Such visits help show a foreign audience the real scale of Russian crimes against Ukrainian cultural heritage and counteract disinformation, IPSO [Russian hybrid war public opinion manipulation] and propaganda.”
“Loomer positions herself as an investigative journalist. In X alone, she has 1.9 million readers. For years, Loomer opposed support for Ukraine and sympathized with Russia, and this year she admitted that she had become a victim of Russian propaganda,” reported LB.UA, one of Ukraine’s biggest breaking news platforms. “The American [Loomer] thanked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Culture of Ukraine, Tetyana Berezhna, for organizing the trip to the Lavra.”
Although inside the Beltway some observers have questioned Loomer’s current influence over Trump and the White House, Ukrainian media presented her as still closely connected with the administration and called her turnaround support to Ukraine and Kyiv visit evidence that US conservative views are shifting in Kyiv’s favor.
“There’s a very interesting development in the MAGA world. The influential right-wing blogger Laura Loomer said that she had been a victim of Russian propaganda for years and had only just realized how skillfully Russia had manipulated her and other conservatives in the United States,” wrote Channel24 television journalist Ostap Yarysh in a June 18 opinion column.
“Loomer is one of Trump’s closest bloggers. She communicates directly with the president, appears in the Oval Office, and may even advise Trump on personnel decisions.”
Gordon, a widely read tabloid named for its sometimes controversial managing editor owner Dmitro Gordon, on June 19, for its coverage of the Loomer story published a 2,000+ word “exposé” report on Loomer detailing her embrace and later rejection of Kremlin narratives, but pulled no punches on her 2023 demand for the removal of Ukrainian flags in Congress, and her prediction at that time that US support to Ukraine against Russia would lead to World War III.
The story of Loomer’s transition from pro-Kremlin to pro-Kyiv positioning as presented to Ukrainian readers is accompanied by video clips of still images chronicling Loomer’s career from her student days to Air Force One flights with Trump, links to Loomer X posts dating back to 2017, and advertisements for, among other products, E-trading, consumer electronics, short-term loans, perfume in bulk and skin care products.
The Gordon article concludes with allegations that other Kremlin “agents” still are masquerading as journalists or influencers and are still pumping pro-Russian content onto US platforms, and praises Loomer for having seen through Russian information warfare tactics.
“Today’s posts by Loomer on Telegram and X are openly pro-Ukrainian,” summed up Gordon investigative reporter Tatiana Gruzinska. “At the same time, her anti-Putin rhetoric is combined with anti-Islamic rhetoric.”
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