In March 2022, shortly after Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine, Yoram Hazony addressed an international conference of national conservatives in Brussels. The author of perhaps the most influential argument for this branch of conservatism—The Virtue of Nationalism—Hazony is a philosophical influence on U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and numerous Trump administration officials, including those who crafted the new U.S. National Security Strategy. At its heart, Hazony wrote in his 2018 book, national conservatism envisions a world of nation-states in which each “has its own traditions … its own trajectory and … judges its own interests on the basis of its own understanding.”
Hazony’s Brussels speech was both an articulation of the national conservative creed and a cri de coeur for Ukraine as a nation-state under threat. Hazony denounced Russia, which “acts as an empire,” “has never in its history been a nation-state,” and has engaged in “conquering a neighboring independent nation-state.” He praised Ukrainians for the “bonds of loyalty that move them to be willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their own people. That doesn’t exist everywhere and at all times, in all places. But where it exists … I feel that I want to help them and thank God many people feel this way … and many are helping them.”
In March 2022, shortly after Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine, Yoram Hazony addressed an international conference of national conservatives in Brussels. The author of perhaps the most influential argument for this branch of conservatism—The Virtue of Nationalism—Hazony is a philosophical influence on U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and numerous Trump administration officials, including those who crafted the new U.S. National Security Strategy. At its heart, Hazony wrote in his 2018 book, national conservatism envisions a world of nation-states in which each “has its own traditions … its own trajectory and … judges its own interests on the basis of its own understanding.”
Hazony’s Brussels speech was both an articulation of the national conservative creed and a cri de coeur for Ukraine as a nation-state under threat. Hazony denounced Russia, which “acts as an empire,” “has never in its history been a nation-state,” and has engaged in “conquering a neighboring independent nation-state.” He praised Ukrainians for the “bonds of loyalty that move them to be willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their own people. That doesn’t exist everywhere and at all times, in all places. But where it exists … I feel that I want to help them and thank God many people feel this way … and many are helping them.”
One might think it natural for conservative nationalists to embrace Ukraine’s cause. Yet Hazony’s conference address did not inspire a standing ovation. Rather it was met with tepid, polite applause.
In June 2022, amid news of mass atrocities by invading Russian forces, Hazony joined eight other prominent conservative thinkers to draft a powerful document titled “National Conservatism: A Statement of Principles.” The signatories were a conservative who’s who, including R.R. Reno of First Things; John O’Sullivan, the former Margaret Thatcher aide and editor of National Review; the late Charlie Kirk; financier Peter Thiel; the Hudson Institute’s John Fonte; Hoover Institution historian Victor Davis Hanson; Roger Kimball of the New Criterion; writer Rod Dreher; and Larry Arnn of Hillsdale College, as well as first Trump administration veterans Michael Anton, Arthur Milikh, and Russ Vought.
Published in the mainly isolationist American Conservative, the text declared that “[a] world of independent nations is the only alternative to universalist ideologies seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe.” The writers argued, “Each nation capable of self-government should chart its own course in accordance with its own particular constitutional, linguistic, and religious inheritance” and called for “a policy of rearmament by independent self-governing nations and of defensive alliances whose purpose is to deter imperialist aggression.” Leaving no doubt as to their target, the signatories explicitly condemned “the imperialism of China, Russia, and other authoritarian powers.”
Yet in the years that followed, Hazony and many other signatories became strangely quiet about Ukraine, with some abandoning it and opposing U.S. military support.
Vance, the most influential U.S. national conservative (or natcon, for short), has consistently shown indifference or hostility to Ukraine’s cause. At the 2025 Munich Security Conference, Vance made an impassioned plea to preserve the distinct identity of Europe’s nation-states, denouncing liberal internationalism and open immigration policies as a threat to these identities. He made no mention of Ukraine’s suffering or the threat to European nations posed by Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Donald Trump listen to U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Feb. 28, 2025. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Throughout his young political career, Vance has consistently treated Ukraine with scornful indifference (“I don’t care” about Ukraine) or outright hostility (as in his famous Oval Office ambush of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky). He has opposed military and financial aid.
Other self-identified natcons have shunned the Ukrainian cause as well. The late Kirk opposed aid, arguing it served no U.S. national interest and could fuel “a kinetic conflict against Russia.” Similarly, Reno now argues that, since Ukraine cannot win, “it is immoral to unleash the violence of war when objectives cannot be achieved, however just those objectives may be.”
Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida has positioned herself as a leading voice for the sovereignty of nations against the encroachments of transnational and multilateral organizations. Yet Luna fawningly consorts with Kremlin advisor Kirill Dmitriev and has invited Russian legislators supporting the genocide of the Ukrainian people to the United States. Together with Turning Point Action, the political advocacy arm of the grassroots conservative organization founded by Kirk, she organized a conference of the Alliance of Sovereign Nations in Washington this week, attended by opponents of aid to Ukraine from Germany’s far-right AfD party and the increasingly Russia-aligned Georgian Dream party. The voices of a Ukrainian nation fighting for its sovereignty are unlikely to be heard.
Hazony’s and his fellow natcons’ silence on Ukraine is so perplexing because the country’s fight represents the very values that stir the hearts of American nationalists: a deep love of freedom; insistence on national sovereignty; civic-mindedness and volunteerism; a historical suspicion of the state; and the heroism, martial spirit, and national solidarity that have enabled the country to fight to a standstill a powerful imperial enemy intent on destroying its culture, language, and traditions. In the last 35 years, Ukraine’s story has been that of a wide-ranging national revival. Ukrainians have been building their own state and reclaiming their identity after centuries of assimilationist policies under the Russian and Soviet empires.
No less worthy of conservatives’ support, one would think, is Ukraine’s post-Soviet resurgence of religious faith, including the rebirth of the formerly banned Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the rise of an independent Orthodox Church, the revival of Judaism, and the emergence of a vibrant evangelical community with millions of new adherents. Yet none of this has made an impression on the vast majority of leading natcons and other MAGA thought leaders.
Several factors have contributed to the natcons’ paradoxical silence on Ukraine.
Foremost has been the desire to preserve unity within the conservative tent, whose overarching priority is not sovereignty but the fight against “woke” liberal culture and education policies. The mantra of pro-Trump Republicans to have “no enemies to the right” has long meant downplaying differences between national security conservatives and MAGA’s isolationist wing, which argues for a reorientation around purely domestic interests. For a long time, this also meant ignoring the presence of white supremacist and antisemitic voices among the right.
With many powerful MAGA voices, including Donald Trump Jr., Elon Musk, David Sacks, Steve Bannon, and Tucker Carlson having expressed intense hostility to Ukraine, most natcons have chosen expediently to ignore the issue.
A photo distributed by Russian state news agency Sputnik shows American talk show host Tucker Carlson interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow on Feb. 6, 2024. Gavriil Reigorov/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images
Carlson has been an active conduit for Russian propaganda, including his gushing praise of life in Russia, fawning interview with Putin, as well as lies about the alleged suppression of religious freedom in Ukraine. His views have significantly contributed to ensuring that a large portion of the MAGA constituency—especially highly motivated grassroots activists—have remained hostile to Ukraine. Carlson’s large audience has long made many natcons reluctant to challenge him on Ukraine.
President Donald Trump and MAGA were also hostile to Ukraine because they saw it as a key cause of the scorned Biden administration. The animosity was further augmented by Ukraine’s close association with the European Union. Yet MAGA’s identification of Ukraine with the liberal establishment in the United States and Europe is unfair. As a country under existential threat, Ukraine necessarily welcomes aid and support from wherever it comes. And given Trump’s decision to cease funding Ukraine’s war effort, Kyiv is more dependent on the EU than ever.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has also played an important role in turning much of the MAGA universe against Ukraine. By portraying himself as a defender of national sovereignty against the EU bureaucracy, opposing financial support for Kyiv, and pleading for rapprochement with Russia, Orban has gained traction among MAGA opinion leaders. He has also shrewdly cultivated the U.S. right by frequently addressing conservative audiences and supporting systematic outreach to conservative American thought leaders through the Budapest-based Danube Institute.
Today, however, most of the actors and factors that have undermined support for Ukraine in the MAGA universe are shifting or in retreat.
Recent debates over the presence of openly racist, antisemitic, and neo-Nazi sentiments within the Trump coalition have shattered the idea of preserving the right’s unity at all costs. Disagreements about how to address extremism within MAGA have caused turmoil at the Heritage Foundation and sharpened differences among MAGA opinion leaders at the recent Turning Point USA conference.
Carlson’s aura has diminished as well. Taking on the mantle of a modern-day Father Coughlin, he has embraced anti-Jewish stereotypes and platforms admirers of Hitler and Joseph Stalin. That has made Carlson the object of increasingly sharp criticism from conservative opinion makers. His opposition to Trump’s increasingly interventionist foreign policy toward Iran and Venezuela is also contributing to his marginalization within the MAGA family. Equally damaging has been his platforming of Nazi apologists and conspiracy theorists about supposed persecution of Christians by Israel—all the while admiring Saudi Arabia, where any public expression of Christian belief or display of Christian symbols is banned.
Equally important, Orban’s political star is waning. Polls suggest that the Russia-leaning Hungarian leader may lose power in April elections. Meanwhile, Europe’s largest MAGA-style movements have increasingly leaned toward Ukraine and distanced themselves from Trump since he threatened Greenland and Denmark. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has remained steadfast in supporting Kyiv. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, now Britain’s most popular political force, is now hostile to Russia and committed to NATO. Poland’s Law and Justice party has long been anti-Russian, pro-NATO, and supportive of Ukraine’s defense. Even France’s Marine Le Pen supported Ukraine when Washington temporarily stopped sharing intelligence with Kyiv in March 2025, calling Trump’s aid cutoff “very cruel.”
Demonstrators rally to show support for Ukraine in Chicago on March 2.Scott Olson/Getty Images
Finally, given U.S. military operations in Iran, Yemen, and Venezuela, Trump’s foreign policy has been more interventionist than isolationist. His success in shifting the burden of financial support for Ukraine to Europe also seems to have reduced opposition to Kyiv within the MAGA coalition.
Recent polling of Trump voters shows strong support for Ukraine and opposition to isolationism. A December 2025 Reagan Institute poll found that nearly two-thirds of MAGA Republicans support sending weapons to Ukraine and an activist U.S. foreign policy. Furthermore, most American voters view Trump’s neutrality in the war negatively and want the country to support Ukraine.
Given these trends, how likely is a revival of support for Ukraine among natcons like Hazony and other MAGA opinion leaders?
At a minimum, Russia’s rejection of Trump’s peace effort will reopen debate within the MAGA coalition about the United States’ next steps. Moreover, the way some MAGA icons pair hostility toward Ukraine with the platforming of extremists has also prompted reflection and sharp debate among conservatives.
With the U.S. midterm elections looming and polls showing strong support for Ukraine among Republicans and independents, there is reason to expect a shift on the U.S. right toward a more pro-Ukrainian stance—a development that would reconnect the right with first principles.
