Support for further Ukraine aid has weakened in Congress, and Oleksandra “Sasha” Ustinova is working hard to boost it back up.

Ustinova, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, is making regular five-day visits to Washington, looking to convince as many lawmakers as she can to approve additional funding and weapons for her war-torn country. 

“We’re trying to meet the leadership, we’re trying to meet the key committees and we’re trying to speak to as many people as we can. We literally have meetings every 30 minutes,” Ustinova, 38, told The Hill via phone recently while driving in western Ukraine.

Kyiv is currently contending with a grinding ground-based counteroffensive and artillery campaign to take back eastern territory from Russian troops. After several key advances, the fight has slowed, bogged down by mines and other defenses that Moscow’s forces have set up. With winter fast approaching, the aid is seen as even more vital.  

But further U.S. support, which has wide bipartisan support, in recent weeks has faced an increasingly complicated road ahead thanks to House conservatives, who insist on the need to hold separate votes on the aid to Ukraine and Israel. Bipartisan talks on a border security package have also complicated the work. 

New Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has signaled a willingness to allow more Ukraine aid, even as his voting record shows a consistent “no” on more dollars for Kyiv.  

“We can’t allow [Russian President Vladimir Putin] to prevail in Ukraine, because I don’t believe it would stop there, and it would probably encourage and empower China to perhaps make a move on Taiwan. We have these concerns,” Johnson said in late October, one day after he was voted Speaker. But he also argued the White House has not been clear on “what is the endgame in Ukraine.” 

Ustinova has singled out those in Congress she believes can be swayed on funding. In her strong English — she studied at Stanford University and spent a year in the United States during high school — she speaks with as many as eight lawmakers a day, also meeting with whole panels or caucuses, including her biggest supporters in the Armed Services, Intelligence and Foreign Relations committees. 

“People who are ready to meet are those who are open for a dialogue,” she said. “It’s difficult to persuade someone who has already made their decision.” 

She specifically targets those who voted in favor of the first Ukraine support package but opposed another round of funding earlier this year. 

“They’re not people who don’t like or don’t want to support Ukraine. Those are people who need more information; those are people that can be persuaded and those are people that you need to talk to,” Ustinova said. 

“I’m trying to explain to them how it works, what our vision is, and I’m honestly telling them that everybody is very comfortable thinking Ukraine is winning. What if Ukraine loses? Do you understand that you’re gonna have Putin right next to Poland, Baltic countries, and he’s gonna invade?” 

That was the attack plan when she was last stateside on Oct. 26 along with a cohort of other Ukrainians, meeting with House and Senate lawmakers, and officials at the Pentagon and U.S. Agency for International Development. 

While there, she met with Johnson and others in the GOP, fielding questions about Kyiv’s goals.  

“These people need something they can communicate with their own voters in their districts, and they need something to use even to persuade their own colleagues sometimes,” she said. 

Ustinova usually visits Washington every three to four months, with Mondays reserved for government contacts, Tuesdays through Thursdays to meet with lawmakers on the Hill and Fridays a chance to speak with think tanks.  

Her 14-hour days “used to be much worse” at the start of the war, when she would start at 6:30 a.m. to do television hits with Fox News, CNN or MSNBC and stay up until 11 p.m., all while nearly nine months pregnant.  

She also happened to be the only member of the Ukrainian parliament in the United States when Russia attacked. 

Days before the war began, she booked a flight to the United States to visit her husband who works in Texas, a trip where she also intended to reach out to her connections on Capitol Hill and warn them of the brewing situation along the Ukrainian border.  

But after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the incursion on Feb. 24, 2022, when Ustinova was 8 1/2 months pregnant, she and her husband decided it was too dangerous to fly back to Ukraine and deliver their child in a war zone.  

Instead, she booked a flight to Washington the same day. 

She remained there for the next six weeks, staying in a borrowed bedroom and meeting with members of Congress, Biden administration officials and think tank experts daily. 

She met with more than 50 lawmakers before she returned to Texas to have her child, a daughter born April 12, 2022. 

Ustinova said she seriously considered naming the child Javelin after the U.S. missile provided to the Ukrainian military and used to great effect against Russian forces — but her husband begged her off. 

Instead, they landed on Victoria, “because we needed a small victory.” 

Since then, she spends most of her time back in Ukraine, where she’s been a member of the country’s parliament since 2019.

In October 2022, she took on the added role of chair of the Parliamentary Temporary Special Commission on monitoring arms supplies to Ukraine, a temporary oversight committee set to track the use and receipt of arms transfers to the country.  

While home she meets defense attachés of other countries, takes meetings in multiple cities, works on national bills and visits the front lines. At the time of this interview, Ustinova was stopped at a gas station en route to a meeting with chairs of factions of the European Parliament. 

In total, the United States has given Ukraine $44.2 billion in military assistance since February 2022, the most recent being a $125 million aid package to meet “immediate battlefield needs,” as well as $300 million for Ukraine’s air defenses, according to a Nov. 3 announcement.  

Congress has also approved $113 billion in military, economic and humanitarian assistance for the country since the start of the invasion. 

But the Pentagon last week warned it now must “meter out” its support for Kyiv, with 95 percent of its funds for the country exhausted.  

“We’re going to continue to roll out packages, they just are getting smaller,” Defense Department deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Thursday. “So we really implore Congress to pass the supplemental request that the President sent up so that we can continue to meet Ukraine’s battlefield needs.” 

To that end, Ustinova has changed her messaging from that of the early days of the war, when she pressed U.S. officials and lawmakers for more advanced weapons to fight the Russian forces, asking the West to set up a no-fly zone, more economic sanctions against Moscow and humanitarian aid for her people. Now, with public support for Ukraine waning, she’s switched tactics, giving updates on the situation on the battlefield, laying out what they need and why and sharing expectations and plans. 

“It used to be, ‘We’re gonna support Ukraine, as long as it takes.’ It’s something that people don’t take as it is anymore,” she explained. Now, “we’re trying to explain to them what the plans are, how the accountability is being done, how transparent we are with your government, stuff like that.” 

She estimates that she’s spoken to more than 100 members of Congress so far.  

As far as plans for the future, Ustinova is unsure whether she will run for parliament again, saying “it depends on how the war ends.” 

For now, she just hopes to make it to Texas next month to spend time with her daughter and husband.  

“All my plans broke on February ’24,” she said. “I was supposed to live with my baby, I already had a room for her and everything settled in Kyiv. I thought she would be going to work with me. I already had a nanny to help, and my mom was supposed to live with me, and it all collapsed.” 

She added: “Ukrainians are used to living now, today. You don’t know what’s gonna happen to you tomorrow and you don’t know what tomorrow is going to look like. I’m just being honest. So I’m not planning anything.” 

​ Support for further Ukraine aid has weakened in Congress, and Oleksandra “Sasha” Ustinova is working hard to boost it back up. Ustinova, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, is making regular five-day visits to Washington, looking to convince as many lawmakers as she can to approve additional funding and weapons for her war-torn country. “We’re…