It takes courage to admit when you are wrong. For Laura Loomer, a Maga influencer, it took a night in a Ukrainian bomb shelter and a trip to a firebombed McDonald’s.

Ms Loomer’s extraordinary about-turn this week – from a provocateur who frequently said she did not care about the Russian invasion to a Ukrainian sympathiser cosying up to Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine – is the clearest sign yet that Maga has changed its mind on the war.

“Just experienced my first air raid in Ukraine. Sirens blaring. This is every day for every Ukrainian,” she wrote in an X post to her almost two million followers. “I often said I don’t care. Looking back, that wasn’t very nice of me to say. We need to have moral clarity.”

On Thursday, Ms Loomer interviewed Mr Zelensky in the garden of the presidential palace, where he admitted that his tête-à-tête with Donald Trump on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral in April 2025 proved a major breakthrough in their relationship.

“Republicans in the Maga community have developed this grudging respect for [Ukraine] and now there’s a convergence,” Glen Howard, president and chairman of the Saratoga Foundation, told The Telegraph.

Ms Loomer is one of a growing number of Maga influencers who believe that Russia has been insincere in the quest for peace. Ukraine, on the other hand, has emerged as a military underdog, surviving a four-year onslaught to become the leader in the techniques of modern warfare.

Two years ago, Tim Pool, an American Right-wing political commentator and podcast host, called Ukraine an “enemy of this country” and demanded that Washington pull its military aid and support.

On Friday, he encouraged Mr Trump to throw his weight behind the Ukraine war effort.

“Ukraine has been fighting for their very existence against an evil dictator,” he wrote on X. “I see now the importance of the Ukrainian victory against Russia. I hope Trump and the people of the United States will lend their support.”

Maga’s shift in position has taken place in tandem with the administration’s growing belief that Ukraine now has the upper hand in a conflict that has rumbled on for four years.

One man has been crucial to changing Mr Trump’s mind on Ukraine. During a recent visit to Kyiv, Dan Driscoll, the US army secretary, was struck by how far Ukraine had outpaced the US in drone warfare and its integration of AI on the battlefield.

He was so impressed that he described Ukraine’s Delta system, which links drones and other weapons in a single network, as “absolutely incredible” while conceding that America had little equivalent, sources told The Telegraph.

“Ukraine’s Delta common operating system, their modular open-system architecture command-and-control system, is absolutely incredible. It fully integrates every single drone, every sensor and every shooting platform into just one single network. Ours does not,” he remarked.

Compounded by spending some time with Ukrainian soldiers which, according to sources familiar with the visit, brought out the army secretary’s inner “army ranger”, he returned to Washington convinced it needed to work with Kyiv, not against it.

Ukraine is no longer a begging aid recipient but an experienced technological partner.

In turn, the US is now pursuing drone purchases from Kyiv and the joint production of their own unmanned aerial vehicles. On Wednesday, it was revealed that six Ukrainian companies had received permission to export about 100 drones each for military testing in the US.

“The Maga community has developed a grudging respect for Ukraine, and I think that secretary of army Dan Driscoll has probably led the way with that,” said Mr Howard.

“The Iran war has created a recognition of the importance of Ukrainian drones, and Ukraine helped the US and provided the assistance when Trump was asking allies to come and help,” he added.

“There’s a certain technological embrace by the Maga community for technology like drones, where they see it and they appreciate it and they grasp.”

At the height of Mr Trump’s conflict with Iran, Western intelligence officers discovered Russia was sharing drone technology, tactics and satellite imagery helping the Islamic Republic to target American troops.

Any attempt by the US president to warn Tehran’s allies, including China, against getting involved had seemingly failed.

Instinctively, Ukraine sensed an opportunity to use the assistance to encourage Mr Trump to take a tougher approach to his relations with Vladimir Putin.

In March, Mr Zelensky claimed his country’s military intelligence agency had “irrefutable evidence” that Moscow was sharing information with Tehran.

He did not reveal the exact nature of this intelligence, but he said it had come from allies in the Middle East, which Ukrainian forces had been helping to defend against incoming Iranian drone attacks.

“Russia is using its own signals intelligence and electronic intelligence capabilities, as well as part of the data obtained through co-operation with partners in the Middle East,” Mr Zelensky said.

The CIA and Mr Trump himself have since acknowledged that Russia was helping Iran.

By amplifying these claims, Ukraine and its allies hoped that it would convince the US president and his Maga supporters that Russia is a larger enemy than once considered.

It appeared to work with Ms Loomer, who claimed in a social media post that the Kremlin had been aiding Tehran.

“Russia is funding Iran and providing them with explosives to murder US soldiers as Iran has called for President Trump’s assassination,” she wrote.

At one stage, it seemed that Ukraine was doomed, abandoned by its most important ally after the most spectacular Oval Office fallout. Sixteen months after the showdown between Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky, it seems Maga is leading the push to bring the pair closer together.