House Speaker Mike Johnson faces a defining dilemma on Ukraine

CNN —

House Speaker Mike Johnson has the fate of a democracy and a people in his hands.

It’s not the United States, which will survive – even if the coming general election results in another existential test for the constitutional system.

The country Johnson has the power to save is Ukraine, two years after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded, decreeing that it didn’t have the right to exist.

Ukraine’s soldiers – trapped in a World War I-style hellscape of trench warfare – are running out of bullets. There are signs that Russia may be about to break a stalemate and tip the war its way.

Soldiers carry the coffin of Ukrainian poet and serviceman Maksym Kryvtsov who was killed in action fighting against Russia's attack on Ukraine, during his funeral ceremony at St. Michael's Monastery in Kyiv, January 11, 2024.

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Johnson, a backbencher who was the last-ditch choice to lead the mutinous House GOP majority last year, could relieve Ukraine’s agony and help ensure its survival as an independent nation in the coming days. He could allow a vote on a bill that includes $60 billion in aid that the Pentagon says is needed to allow Kyiv to continue to effectively fight. It would likely pass with a comfortable bipartisan majority.

The Louisiana Republican’s reluctance to do so is a commentary on the growing power of GOP front-runner Donald Trump, the sharp turn of his party away from its globalist pro-democracy heritage and perhaps even his own ambition since borrowing Democratic votes to finance Ukraine’s defense could cost him the speakership.

The speaker is coming under extreme pressure