Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a Russian missile attack in Odessa on March 15. (Oleksandr Gimanov/AFP/Getty Images)

By Jim Geraghty contributing columnist

March 19, 2024 at 6:15 a.m. EDT

KYIV — When I speak to Ukrainians, one of my go-to questions is what they would tell Americans if they had the chance.

Miroslava Luzina, a translator and independent political consultant, told me she wishes she could speak to just one particular American: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

Johnson, she said, “is now the biggest obstacle” to U.S. military aid for Ukraine. He is someone “who claims to be Christian,” she said, but “his actions or his political stance is actually costing lives. So, he is the cause of more people getting dead at the front line, and behind the front lines, and in the occupied territories.”

Ukrainians are intensely watching Congress, looking for any sign that a new military assistance package, which has been kicked around for months, will become reality.

Luzina and I chatted in a restaurant on the Dnieper River, which bisects the capital city, but she recently returned from Odessa, where a Russian ballistic missile attack struck a residential area on Friday, killing at least 20 and wounding 70.

One of my other go-to questions for Ukrainians is to simply ask how they’re doing. The answers are often raw. Luzina told me that she now wakes up in the middle of the night, not merely from nightmares, but from an overwhelming sense of grief. Enduring two years of war — along with the uncertainty of how much longer it will last, and whether one will still have a country when it’s over — would be a staggering psychological burden for anyone.

Both on my previous trip to Ukraine in August and this time, I’m struck by how Ukrainians have grown to treat the frequent air raid alerts nonchalantly, like hard-bitten New Yorkers ignoring a car alarm going off down the street.

Luzina laughed a bit upon hearing this description, then related the calculation she makes when she hears the air raid warnings in the middle of the night — the fatalistic sense that the one time you choose not go to the shelter will be the one time the missile strikes your location. She said she has seen missiles flying past her house, targeting railway yards in eastern Kyiv, and watched tracers from antiaircraft fire light the sky from a balcony where she was staying in Odessa.

It has been a quiet few days in Kyiv. I haven’t heard any air raid sirens since my arrival in the city Friday night, but that might well just reflect that Russia is using more missiles and drones on the front lines, and making fewer attempts to terrorize Ukraine’s capital city. The same night as the ballistic missile attack on Odessa, Ukrainian authorities said they shot down “about a dozen and a half” Shahed drones attempting to attack Kyiv.

On March 10, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky noted of Shaheds that “since the beginning of March, Russian terrorists have already used 175 such killer drones against Ukraine. Fortunately, 151 of them were shot down by our warriors. And this is a very important result. Yes, not all of them. Yes, there are hits. Unfortunately, there are losses. There are casualties. But there are also people saved.”

Back in October, Johnson sat down for an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity and declared, “We can’t allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine.” And yet, a Senate bill with $60 billion in aid for Ukraine hit a brick wall in the House because Johnson refused to bring it to the floor. Why? Johnson clearly fears an insurrection among the House GOP’s Freedom Caucus, which takes its cues from former president Donald Trump, and could oust him from the speakership, just as it ousted Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from the position last fall.

Johnson told Politico last week that he now expects to pass a Ukraine assistance bill with Democratic votes, overcoming House Republicans’ intransigence. But he offered no firm timetable for the vote, and even if he succeeds, the fact remains that passing such legislation could have been accomplished last month, or in January, or the month before that. And even if the bill is passed, no doubt months would pass before weapons systems, including air-defense systems and missiles, would start flowing through the pipeline again.

How many Ukrainians will die between now and then?

Opinion by Jim Geraghty

Jim Geraghty is National Review’s senior political correspondent, where he writes the daily “Morning Jolt” newsletter, among other writing duties. He’s the author of the novel “The Weed Agency” (a Washington Post bestseller), the nonfiction “Heavy Lifting” with Cam Edwards and “Voting to Kill,” and the Dangerous Clique series of thriller novels. Twitter

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The writer is a friend of Republican strategist Steven Moore, who wrote on his LI page:

I have the good fortune to be friends with Jim Geraghty who writes for both National Review and the The Washington Post.

Conservative influencers like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens have a lot of opinions about Ukraine, conservative journalist Jim Geraghty actually comes to Ukraine and gets firsthand information.

I met with Jim and his team last night. Brave folks with a passion for telling the truth. Make a habit of reading Jim’s work.

A link to an article about Mr Moore’s efforts to help Ukraine is here :

The GOP’s Man in Kyiv Has a Message for Ukraine Skeptics:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/13/ukraine-capitol-hill-steven-moore-00108134