By all indications, many Republicans appear determined to begin purging their party of the stain created by Donald Trump’s embrace of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. You might call this the “de-Putin-ization” of the GOP, but in truth, it goes only so far.

On one hand, as Putin’s war crimes in Ukraine mount, most Republicans have strongly condemned his aggression and back a forceful response. On the other, very few will directly renounce — or even acknowledge — Trump’s aggressive efforts as president to align U.S. interests with those of Putin against those of Ukraine and Western liberal democracy.

Mike Pence may embody this dynamic more comprehensively than anyone else. And now that the former vice president is launching his rehabilitation tour in advance of 2024, this is on fuller display than ever.

Russia and Putin figure prominently in Pence’s new rollout, which includes a glossy new “Freedom Agenda,” a slickly produced video and interviews in presidential swing state markets around the country.

What’s striking is how carefully Pence charts a break from Trump on Russia and Ukraine. He does this, needless to say, without uttering a single word about what Trump actually did as president on this front, which unfolded with Pence as his loyal servant throughout.

“Putin undermines freedom and democracy at home and abroad, while jeopardizing stability by threatening the sovereignty of Russiaʼs neighbors,” Pence’s agenda warns. It adds that the United States must “stand strong against Russian aggression and rally our Western allies in defense of freedom.”

“Our military must be strengthened and fully funded,” Pence’s video intones, as "Russia’s provocations grow by the day.”

In saying these things, Pence is trying to reorient the GOP toward a traditionally Republican “hawkish” stance. This posture is more firmly aligned against Russian aggression and with Ukraine, albeit with perhaps more overtly nationalist and less liberal internationalist leanings compared with President Biden and most Democrats.

Other Republicans are attempting something similar. As ABC News reports, some want to get the party back to its foreign policy “roots,” while carefully weakening Trump’s influence over Republicans "on the Putin question.” Pence himself recently declared that there’s no room in the GOP for “apologists for Putin.”

But Trump was more than just an “apologist for Putin.” And Pence was right at his side through all of it. Pence was directly involved in Trump’s appallingly corrupt effort to pressure and extort Ukraine, and he was on the front lines of Trump’s defense when he got impeached for it.

Pence’s role in the Ukraine scandal should not be memory-holed. Pence personally delivered the message to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Trump was withholding U.S. military aid to Ukraine when it was under Russian attack.

Pence’s aides insisted at the time that he didn’t know Trump was pressuring Zelensky to manufacture dirt on his 2020 general election rival. But a key player in that scandal testified that he had directly informed Pence of concerns that Trump was using the aid to strong-arm Zelensky.

What’s more, a top Pence adviser testified that she overheard Trump’s now-infamous extortion call with Zelensky, calling it “unusual and inappropriate.” And there are all kinds of other indications that Pence all but certainly knew full well what was happening.

And Pence defended Trump during the scandal. Pence lent support to the absurdity that Trump was merely interested in investigating Ukrainian “corruption,” and even defended Trump’s call for dirt-digging on his rival as grounded in the national interest.

Beyond all this, let’s not forget that throughout his presidency, Trump took many other steps to try to align U.S. interests with those of Putin and against Ukraine and the West.

It is of course legitimate for Pence to have very different views on those matters than Trump harbored, and to air them now. But it’s absurd for Pence to do this while not acknowledging his own deep entanglement with Trump’s efforts to stake out a dramatically different posture, both as an outgrowth of his own bottomless corruption and as a matter of foreign policy.

It’s true that Trump, sensing an outpouring of global sympathy for Ukrainian suffering, has made noises in opposition to Putin’s invasion. But this has mostly been about portraying himself as tough and strong, such as when he boasted that if he were president today, he’d threaten Russia with nuclear annihilation.

And Trump has not in any sense declared we should be fundamentally allied with Ukraine and against Russia for broader reasons. Trump hasn’t voiced support for the imperative of standing with the West and liberal democracy, and against Putin’s effort at violent annexation, as a matter of values and principle.

Trump remains the leader of the Republican Party. He’s the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination. Will there come a point at which Republicans openly debate what Trump truly represents, never mind renounce it?

Time will tell. But it’s not clear how this might work. Just about every Republican voted to exonerate Trump over the Ukraine scandal. How many have followed Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) in disavowing that vote?

Pence would like to be seen renouncing Trump’s posture without openly saying that’s what he’s doing. The big Trumpian elephant in the room is that Republicans cannot really admit to much of what Trump did on Ukraine, not just because he’s so dominant among them, but also because it would implicate their own complicity in it.