‘Don Quixote-like quest’: Ukraine attack and easing Covid mandates leave US trucker protest on the fringe

Trucks and cars in support of the “people’s convoy” heading to south on Interstate 81. Photograph: Aimee Dilger/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

Ryan Wright stood around a campfire in Lupton, Arizona, a town on the Navajo reservation where members of an American trucker convoy protest were resting for the night. As the fire flickered he discussed a conspiracy myth about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, he proffered, was a distraction. “I’m not the only one that feels this way,” Wright said. “But I feel like it’s a big fat smokescreen to keep everyone distracted on what is really going on in the world.”