To the Editor:

Re “Envoys Reveal Scope of Trump Ukraine Push” (front page, Nov. 14):

The testimonies of William B. Taylor Jr. , the top United States diplomat in Ukraine, and George P. Kent , the State Department’s top official on Ukraine policy, in the impeachment hearings of Donald Trump were sobering, credible and revelatory.

President Trump’s self-serving political machinations undermined the foreign policy of the United States. That policy, in essence, said to Ukraine, “We stand with you in defense of your freedom and democracy and against Russian aggression, now and always.” It is policy that is vital not only to the national security of Ukraine but to ours and to that of all liberal democracies as well.

And weakening that policy is a gift to Vladimir V. Putin in his quest to overcome the humiliation of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

President Trump withheld congressionally appropriated military aid to Ukraine as Ukrainian soldiers were dying on the battlefield. He wanted to coerce the newly elected president of Ukraine to publicly announce an investigation into the 2016 election and the Bidens, as former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. launched his 2020 campaign to defeat Mr. Trump.