That is so true, Bryant. I went with a friend of mine, he is as tall as I am (6'4) but he couldn't say a single word of Russian, so it was very difficult for him. He struggled and girls often showed no patience with him when they couldn't speak English. I on the other hand was able to break the ice with almost all females I run into by saying a few phrases in Russian. Most seemed amused and appreciated the effort I was making. One even said" You speak Russian with a French accent"
But naturally, your chances of success will increase if you meet those who can speak English fairly well, and those are the ones who usually are interested in foreign men, and I mean,
very interested
Not speaking the language just decrease your chances dramatically because most of these women are not comfortable at all with people who don't speak their language. In Kiev, about 80% of the population speak Russian, in Crimea, I've heard it's 100%. So you will get away with learning Russian since it's widely spoken compared to Ukrainian and it can help you with other countries that were once part of the USSR as well.
So I went ahead and enrolled in The Beverly Lingual Institute and starting July 8th, I will be learning Russian every Wednesday at 6:00 PM in a 80 minutes class. I've heard Russian is a very difficult to learn, but I am up for the challenge, and I have a hell of a motivation to learn
http://www.bhlingual.com/Pages/Russian.htm