Chicago City Wire

Illinois’ 5th Congressional District Republican candidate Malgorzata McGonigal recently said war is looming in Ukraine. 

"This is again my personal opinion from what I've seen there and what I heard about what is going on there. It's been going on for quite a while. I think it's going to be about 21 months right now. So it's nothing new that had just started over last week or anything like that," she told Chicago City Wire. 

McGonigal said her account is from firsthand observations during a recent trip to her native Poland.

Poland shares a large southeastern border with Ukraine.

She visited Warsaw, Polands’s capital, two weeks ago. Warsaw is an hour's flight to Ukraine’s border.  

"This has been going on for a very, very long time. And from what I heard, Kiev was already evacuated months ago or started the evacuation a month ago. So it really doesn't look good."

While the conflict appears to be looming, McGonigal said she is hopeful a diplomatic resolution can be achieved before bloodshed occurs. 

"I hope we won't go into a war, but we are sending our troops as some sort of first step of this, the war happening. But hopefully, this is just not going to happen and we are going to be able to diplomatically resolve their issues," she said. 

McGonigal has been critical of her opponent, Democrat U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Lakeview) and his ties to the defense industry, which stands to profit off of a military dispute in Ukraine. 

Quigley has landed some of the top committees when it comes to international relations and according to the Daily Herald, has filled his campaign war chest with $26,000 from defense contractors. 

Among the campaign contributors to Quigley are Boeing, General Dynamics, L3 Harris Technologies and Lockheed Martin. 

Lockheed Martin and Boeing are number one and two among the most profitable defense contractors in the world.