When former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee made the surprise announcement two weeks ago that he was very likely to challenge US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in a Democratic primary this year, he hoped it would spur a conversation about the future of the party.

Instead, the conversation has centered on his alleged past ties to a Ukrainian oligarch and how, on some critical issues, he shares the same position as President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

The discussion has got to the point where Chafee found himself on local radio declaring, “I am not a Russian spy.’’

Here’s a look back at what happened:

Back in 2011, then-Governor Chafee reported on a financial disclosure form that in 2009 he was paid as much as $135,000 as a board member of a Ukrainian organization that we now know was tied to Rinat Akhmetov, who later served as a patron of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

On top of that, in the last year, he has appeared on RT, the Russian government-backed cable news outlet that the US government views as an arm of the Russian government, not a journalism operation, forcing it to register as a “foreign agent.’’

In those RT interviews, he characterized a speech from Putin critical of the United States as “brilliant.’’ He also offered up that there was no way to prove whether the Russian government was responsible for the death of a former spy in Britain, or that the Russian-backed Syrian government had used illegal chemical weapons on its own people.

Both statements essentially echoed the talking point of Putin and his administration. Chafee went on to dispute any notion that Russian meddling with the election helped put Trump in the White House.

In Rhode Island, the criticisms were fast and furious once Chafee’s remarks came to light. A headline in last week’s Providence Journal blared: “Chafee praises Putin’s ‘brilliant’ critique of US power.’’ Talk radio pounced.

Suddenly, at the very moment he was pitching Rhode Island on the idea that he deserved a second (make that a third) chance, the conversation had turned against him.

In an interview with the Globe this week, Chafee said he had zero regrets, either about his involvement with the Ukrainian group or about the subsequent TV interviews.

“I am as mad as any partisan Democrat that Donald Trump is our president, but I don’t think that the Russian meddling had anything to do with Donald Trump becoming president,’’ Chafee told the Globe.

Specifically Chafee believes he was taken out of context for praising that Putin speech made in 2007 as “brilliant.’’

Chafee said he felt the speech was appropriate in the post-Iraq period it was given, in which Putin suggested there should be more international cooperation. Some 11 years later, Chafee called the deterioration of the US-Russia relationship is “sad.’’

University of Rhode Island political science professor Maureen Moakley, who has written extensively on Ocean State politics, said she thinks Chafee has been taken aback by the swift blowback in the last week. “He talked about the fact that it was taken somewhat out of context and this may give him pause as to whether he should continue in the race,’’ she said.

But at a time when the Democratic National Committee is suing Russia for hacking e-mails and Democrats in general have made Russia a massive issue, Chafee said he doesn’t mind being an outlier in saying we should have a better relationship with Russia.

“I was against the Iraq war when I was the Senate. I was right. . . . I thought Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be the best person to be the Democratic nominee. I was right,’’ Chafee said.

Different and indeed fresh perspectives are exactly what Rhode Island needs, he notes. And that’s what his campaign would be all about. Chafee said he is “90 percent’’ likely to challenge Whitehouse this year. He will make a decision after he conducts a poll. The Rhode Island candidate filing deadline is in late June.

Whitehouse, his would-be Democratic opponent, has been conspicuously silent on Chafee and the Russia stories. When asked, he declined to comment. But he has been a frequent critic of Russia, saying it “deserve[s] a punch in the nose.’’

For Chafee’s part, even as he’s willing to address the Russia criticisms head on, he calls them “hit jobs’’ and says he thinks the primary should be focused on the future of the Democratic party. He sees the primary as a rematch of sorts of the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. Chafee said he has been encouraged by Bernie Sanders’s supporters in the state to challenge Whitehouse, who backed Clinton in that contest. Sanders won every county in the state over Clinton.

And while some would argue that there isn’t a lot of daylight between the two Democrats, Chafee said he plans to highlight their differences on privacy and wiretapping as it relates to the war against terrorism.

But first, he’ll need to convince Rhode Islanders to move beyond the Russia fixation. Political comebacks are never easy, and in Chafee’s case, the road back is even steeper. When we last saw him, he was an unpopular former independent governor vowing to run for president as a Democrat on the platform that he would (among other things) move the United States to the metric system. Not exactly the best look.

For him to return — and unseat a popular Democratic senator — he’ll need to convince the very blue state electorate that he’s a credible candidate worthy of their consideration. As Chafee himself notes, the Democratic primary in Rhode Island is essentially the entire election.

“Chafee’s challenge is persuading Democratic voters in Rhode Island that he would be a stronger general election candidate and a better US Senator,’’ said Wendy Schiller, chairwoman of Brown University’s political science department. “Praising Putin is probably not the best place to hang his hat in contrasting himself with Whitehouse.’’

James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamespindell or subscribe to his Ground Game newsletter on politics: pages.email.bostonglobe.com/ GroundGameSignUp