Donald Trump led the effort to block military aid to Ukraine. The Financial Times reported:

President Joe Biden has blamed Donald Trump for sinking a bipartisan bill delivering billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine along with stricter immigration policies, after Republicans signalled their opposition to the deal under pressure from the former president. 

The legislation worth $118bn agreed on Sunday by Democratic and Republican negotiators in the Senate could be the last chance for the Biden administration to secure new military support for Ukraine in its defence against Russia’s invasion — alongside other national security goals including aid to Israel and Taiwan. 

It also marks a rare compromise on efforts to curb immigration through the border with Mexico, including restrictions on asylum, which has been a rallying cry for Republicans and a political liability for Democrats throughout Biden’s presidency. 

But the bipartisan dealmaking has been trashed by Trump in recent weeks — and the frontrunner for this year’s Republican White House nomination moved to torpedo the latest breakthrough again this week. 

“He’d rather weaponise this issue than actually solve it,” Biden said of his predecessor from the state dining room of the White House on Tuesday. 

“For the last 24 hours, he’s done nothing at all but reach out to Republicans in the House and the Senate and threaten them and try to intimidate them to vote against this proposal. And it looks like they’re caving,” the president added.

The delay had military consequences and allowed Russia to make battlefield gains. The New York Times reported, “A monthslong debate in Washington about whether to send Ukraine a $61 billion package of arms and ammunition created an opening that Russia has clearly exploited, even though Congress ultimately passed the legislation.’

The Times further reported that “Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said with some understatement on Sunday that ‘there’s no doubt there’s been a cost’ to the long delays in sending arms.”

The Times reported:

Because of the delay in U.S. funding, Russia has been able to achieve a huge artillery advantage over Ukraine. The lack of air defense ammunition has also allowed Russia to use its air power with more impunity, attacking Ukrainian lines with glide bombs. With more air defense ammunition, Ukraine would be able to force those planes farther back, making it more difficult for Russia to attack from the air.

The Washington Post explained:

Ukraine’s armed forces have been severely handicapped by the long delay in approving U.S. aid. Ukrainian troops found themselves getting outgunned 10 to 1in artillery ammunition, and their air-defense munitions have also been running dangerously low. The Wall Street Journal reports that “in the past six months, Ukraine intercepted around 46% of Russian missiles, compared with 73% in the preceding six-month period. … Last month the interception rate fell to 30% of missiles.” Ukraine’s inability to provide adequate air defense for front-line troops means that Russia has been able to use air power to a significant degree for the first time.

The delay by Congress in providing military aid was directed by Trump. Politico reported:

As Trump’s Republican allies in the United States Congress block military aid that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Kyiv desperately needs to avoid defeat in its war with invading Russian forces, it’s clear the former U.S. president’s ill will toward Ukraine has deep roots.

The New York Times reported:

More Republicans voted against the aid than for it, showing just how much Mr. Trump’s broad isolationism — and his movement’s antipathy to Ukraine — has divided the G.O.P. in an election year.

Few issues have been more central to the former president’s creed than his foreign policy isolationism, his call for Europe to raise military spending in its own backyard, and his foreign policy shift toward Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia.

Though he has in recent days stayed quiet, his most vociferous allies in the House, such as Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida, had led efforts to block the aid. Another pro-Trump firebrand, Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, jeered Democrats during the vote as they waived Ukrainian flags on the House floor.

“Such an embarrassing and disgusting show of America LAST politicians!” she then wrote on social media. “You love Ukraine so much, get your ass over there and leave America’s governing to those who love THIS country!”

Ms. Greene criticized those in her party who supported the bill. “Mike Johnson’s House of Representatives, so proud to work for Ukraine. Not the American people!!! It’s despicable!”

Even Mr. Trump’s own son Donald Trump Jr. had joined in the castigation of Mr. Johnson and his handling of Ukraine aid. The most devoted acolytes of Mr. Trump still harbor a particular opposition to supporting Ukraine, which figures into conspiracy theories dating back to the 2016 election.

Delayed military aid cost Ukrainian lives. The Washington Post reported:

When the vote on Ukraine aid finally came, it was overwhelming, 311-112. That raised the question: Why in the world did such a popular measure take so long? It could have been done long ago, when President Biden requested the aid in October, had Johnson simply ignored the histrionics from pro-Putin House members who take their cues from Donald Trump.

A week … a month … six months ago, the vote to deliver critical aid could have prevented countless Ukrainian deaths. Just last week, Russian missiles struck an apartment building in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, killing 17 people and injuring at least 61. That was merely one strike among many Russia has successfully carried out in recent months while Ukraine has been hampered by munitions shortages and inadequate antimissile defenses.

The delay had serious, widespread consequences for Ukraine. Max Bergmann, a former State Department official and director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, tells me, “Their power sector has been decimated by lack of air defense, which will be incredibly costly to repair.” He adds that on the front “Ukrainians have lost a lot of soldiers because if you don’t have artillery you have to hold the line with men.” In other words, Ukraine has “lost a lot of people simply because we stopped providing them ammo.”

These losses to Ukraine and to U.S. national security interests were entirely avoidable. Had Johnson simply listened to U.S. intelligence experts or even traveled to Ukraine, as several House and Senate members did, and witnessed the carnage, he would have quickly grasped the urgency of a vote.

Either Republicans were extremely slow to learn about the harm they were causing, or they knew all along the danger they were visiting on Ukraine but didn’t care. Johnson’s apparent fear of Trump’s wrath or an attempt to oust him as speaker — in which no Republicans other than Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) appeared much interested — seemed to outweigh concern for a U.S. ally.