Ukraine rolled out the red carpet for Laura Loomer, the far-right activist who frequently speaks to President Trump.

She sat down for about 40 minutes last week with President Volodymyr Zelensky, conducted the first interview with Ukraine’s new acting defense minister, dined with the country’s chief rabbi and got a tour of an animal shelter, given her affection for dogs.

“They view me as an extension of the Trump administration, even though I don’t work for the Trump administration,” Ms. Loomer said in an interview.

Speaking by phone from Kyiv, Ms. Loomer, who used to echo Russia’s false talking points about Ukraine being run by neo-Nazis, marveled at the “shock waves” her arrival and newly pro-Ukrainian message had set off.

The stir around Ms. Loomer’s trip reflects the years of effort that Ukraine and its supporters have invested in trying to undo the skepticism of the country’s war effort harbored by Mr. Trump’s MAGA movement and the president himself. And it reveals how the right’s split over the Iran war may also be redrawing the political battle lines over Russia and Ukraine.

Pro-Ukraine groups have long highlighted churches destroyed in Russian airstrikes and the persecution of some Christians in Russia. They have organized trips to Ukraine for conservative activists, pastors and influencers. They once took out a billboard with a Bible verse across from Speaker Mike Johnson’s Louisiana church.

But they have struggled to make inroads with Mr. Trump, his closest aides and key right-wing voices. Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s friend and special envoy, kept traveling to Russia for meetings with President Vladimir V. Putin but not to Ukraine. Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, kept praising Mr. Putin, saying he is “trying to re-Christianize Russia.” Mr. Trump kept saying he trusted the Russian leader.

“Ultimately, the president is the only person who matters,” said Melinda Haring, a senior adviser at the pro-Ukrainian nonprofit Razom for Ukraine, where she directs outreach to the Trump administration.

While many MAGA figures have shown “personal support and sympathy” for Ukraine’s cause, Ms. Haring said, they “can’t do anything about it because Donald Trump hasn’t changed his mind.”

That is why Ms. Haring and other Ukraine supporters are now hoping that Ms. Loomer’s visit represents a turning point. Ms. Loomer said she called Mr. Trump twice from Ukraine. On social media, she said she “fell for Russian propaganda” when she once called Mr. Zelensky “a self hating Nazi Jew.”

There are some signs Mr. Trump may be giving more heed to Ukraine’s arguments as Russia’s invasion nears the four-and-a-half-year mark, but little to signal a decisive change in course.

The president said in early July that he would allow Ukraine to manufacture Patriot air-defense systems, then told The Financial Times this week he was “not sure” he would do it. He has maintained his sympathetic approach to Mr. Putin.

“I’d like him to end the war,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Zelensky after meeting with him at the White House this week. “I get along with President Putin. I get along with President Zelensky.”

Mr. Zelensky came to Washington for the funeral of Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. Some hope that Ms. Loomer can fill the void he leaves behind as a pro-Ukrainian voice in Mr. Trump’s ear.

Ms. Loomer, who first rose to prominence in right-wing circles with her anti-Muslim and homophobic invective, proved her personal influence with Mr. Trump last year when she apparently persuaded the president to fire six of his national security aides. This year, she has aligned herself with Mr. Trump further by defending his decision to attack Iran.

It was the right-wing divide over Iran and Israel, Ms. Loomer said, that precipitated her change of heart on Ukraine. Two of her biggest online nemeses, Mr. Carlson and the podcaster Candace Owens, have doubled down on their Russia-friendly stances as they criticized the Iran war and the U.S. alliance with Israel. Ms. Owens’s visit to Mr. Putin’s marquee conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, in June, she said, added to her determination to go to Ukraine.

“I realized all these people had something in common and that’s that they all aggressively advocate for Russia in the Russia-Ukraine war,” Ms. Loomer said. “I started to think to myself, what else are they lying about?”

Ms. Loomer, who has nearly two million followers on X, has said her work is funded by donors whom she declines to identify. She said in a May interview that she was finalizing her “pitch deck” for her meetings with donors. She said on X that the cost of her trip to Ukraine was “supplemented by private Americans who were worried about my safety.”

An American reached out to her in late May, according to Ms. Loomer, offering the opportunity to travel to Ukraine. The individual, whom Ms. Loomer declined to identify, worked in the nonprofit sector and had led numerous trips to Ukraine for people interested in learning more about the conflict.

Her contact helped her organize the trip, arranging transportation and lodging, finding a local videographer to film Ms. Loomer and coming up with financial support to cover the costs of security while in Ukraine. Before Ms. Loomer’s arrival, the person arranged for a number of trips, including to a drone factory, bomb shelters and numerous spots close to the front lines, as well as meetings with high-ranking officials, including with Mr. Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff.

Steven Moore, a former Republican chief of staff in Congress who founded a charity supporting Ukraine, said Ms. Loomer’s visit marked a turning point because it counterbalanced major right-wing influencers who have largely echoed anti-Ukraine narratives, such as Mr. Carlson and Ms. Owens.

In recent months, Mr. Moore has seized on Ukraine’s successful drone campaign against the Russian military to portray Mr. Putin as the one thing Mr. Trump has long said he despises most: a loser.

His group, the Ukraine Freedom Project, ran a “Putin is a loser” online advertising campaign highlighting Russia’s battlefield human losses, the crippling of much of its Black Sea Fleet and the country’s struggling economy.

“Nobody wants to be associated with a fool or a loser,” he said. “Trump likes winners, he likes to be associated with winners and Ukraine is the winner right now.”

In May and June, Mr. Moore’s group hosted a 10-day trip to Ukraine for conservative media that included a public relations specialist working for Ms. Loomer, Andrew Moore. The group visited frontline military units, saw churches affected by the war and met with Kyrylo Budanov, Mr. Zelensky’s chief of staff.

A month and a half later, Ms. Loomer was in Ukraine, rebutting the anti-Ukraine narrative she had once amplified. She met with Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman, one of the country’s leading Jewish religious figures, whose son was killed fighting Russian forces. “The rabbi told me his dead Jewish son didn’t fight alongside Nazis,” Ms. Loomer, who is Jewish, wrote on social media.

She also recast the argument for U.S. support, framing it not as an act of charity — a characterization long promoted by Mr. Trump — but as an investment in American security, pointing to Ukraine counter-drone technology now being used to help U.S. allies in the Middle East defend against Iranian attacks.

Joe Lindsley, a former aide to Roger Ailes, the architect of Fox News, said it was the kind of argument that could resonate with the MAGA base.

“Trump needs a language with which he can sell Ukraine to the American people,” said Mr. Lindsley, who has been living in Ukraine since the start of the war and has been advocating for more U.S. support. “And Laura Loomer is giving him that.”

Kim Barker contributed reporting from London.