Laura Loomer meets Volodymyr Zelenskyy after pro-Ukraine conversion

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Far-right activist Laura Loomer has met Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy inside the Mariyinsky Palace, the ceremonial residence of the president, capping her journey from trenchant critic of Kyiv to one of its biggest champions in the Maga movement.

One of President Donald Trump’s favourite influencers, Loomer had until recently been telling her millions of followers that Ukraine was corrupt, undeserving of US support and led by a “Jihadi apologist”.

But she has abandoned what were Kremlin-friendly narratives to praise Ukraine’s resilience in fighting Russian aggression, even travelling to Kyiv this month to show her solidarity.

On Thursday she met Zelenskyy in his ceremonial residence, according to two presidential office officials.

“I did say these things about Ukraine and Zelenskyy and I am not deleting my posts because I’ve realized, I was wrong,” Loomer posted on X from Kyiv on Monday.

An hour earlier, she posted a video of herself travelling aboard Ukraine’s famous blue-and-yellow trains. “I’m not in Russia because I’m not a propagandist,” read the text — in Russian — accompanying the post.

Loomer’s apparent shift is striking both for her proximity to Trump and her prominence on the American far right, with an audience deeply sceptical of US support for the country.

With the president still appearing to take her advice on everything from policy to personnel, her public embrace of Ukraine has raised the question of whether her Ukraine shift could help reshape opinions on the American far right.

Few activists with no government role enjoy the access to Trump that Loomer has. That appears to have helped her to connect with senior officials in Kyiv, including Zelenskyy himself.

Sergiy Kyslytsya, first deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, met Loomer on Wednesday and showed her around the nearly 1,000-year-old grounds of one of the holiest sites of the Eastern Orthodox faith.

“It was interesting to sit down and talk to @LauraLoomer and then to go to Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra,” he said. Their visit came a month after a Russian drone strike on the monastery burned the roof of one of its cathedrals.

Loomer posted a video from inside the cathedral, which she called “absolutely gorgeous” and “incredible”.

“The Russians fired two Shahed drones at this monastery,” she said, zooming in to show the boarded windows in its dome. “Vladimir Putin constantly portrays Russia as some savior of Christianity . . . Well, if you care about Christianity so much, why would you drone the oldest monastery in Ukraine?”

Loomer also visited a McDonald’s restaurant in Kyiv — the first one opened after the fall of the Soviet Union — that has been repeatedly damaged by Russian attacks.

Posing against the backdrop of buildings destroyed by Russian missiles in recent attacks while eating a burger and fries, she praised “Ukrainian resilience” which she observed “remains undiminished”.

It remains unclear what exactly prompted Loomer’s apparent change of heart. “To those who are asking, no, the government of Ukraine didn’t pay for my trip to Ukriane [sic],” she wrote on X.