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The marathon overnight session in the Senate to pass a funding bill for Ukraine is a relief for Kyiv and for Europe.

It’s yet to pass the House of Representatives, though.

It may well not.

And the whole episode is indicative of an almighty American political mess with huge implications.

The real story isn’t that the US Senate has done its part in passing the spending bill for Ukraine.

Ukraine latest: Zelenskyy reacts to crucial US Senate vote

It’s actually about how we got to this point, and it is a story of raw, ugly politics.

It is about American leadership, and it is about the extent to which Donald Trump is already shaping global geo-politics.

It’s a tale that cuts to the heart of America’s political chaos, but it’s not altogether straightforward so bear with me…

‘Secure our own borders first’ – the Republican plan

Late last year, with America’s cyclical funding contribution for Ukraine in need of being renewed, a new proposed bill was sent from the White House down Pennsylvania Avenue to Congress for approval.

That’s where the problems began.

Republicans, with justified concerns about America’s domestic challenges, saw an opportunity.

Conservative America has huge worries about the Biden Administration’s immigration policy and the chaotic status of the country’s southern border with Mexico – which, incidentally, dwarf Europe’s immigration challenges.

And so, Republicans decided to predicate their support for the Ukraine-Israel-Taiwan spending bill on Biden and the Democrats doing something about America’s border-migration chaos.

The Republicans sold it as “why should we be helping Ukraine secure its own borders when our own are wide open”.

It’s an argument that resonates well in conservative parts of today’s America.

The Democrats though saw it as an unacceptable conflation of two distinct challenges which put Ukraine’s victory against Russia, and European security, in peril.

Nevertheless, they faced it head on. Biden and the Democrats produced their most conservative policy ever for America’s southern border. It largely addressed the Republican concerns.

They were ready to put a broad “Southern border-Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan” package through Congress.

Here’s where the raw politics comes in.

Trump got what he wanted – and rejected it anyway

Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill rejected the Democrat domestic border proposals – the very proposals they had been calling for.

Why? Because Trump urged them to reject them. He even threatened that Republicans who voted for the border package would find their careers at an end.

Trump and his allies recognised that a chaotic southern border helps him. If Biden sorted out the border, then he’d get the credit; it’s no longer a tool for Trump as he seeks to beat Biden in November’s election.

And so, with the overwhelming power he holds over conservative lawmakers in the lower house of Congress, he managed to block the southern border bill.

The whole package fell apart. Ukraine’s ability to defend itself and the security of America’s southern border were both in jeopardy and the victims of raw politics.

This prompted the Democrats to return to the original plan – not to conflate the domestic border with foreign spending.

So, they pushed through the Ukraine-Israel-Taiwan bill on its own.

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Today that passed the Senate – congress’s upper house – inhabited on the right by more traditional, less Trumpian Republicans.

The question now is what Trump’s foot-soldiers in the lower house will do.

Echoing into their lower chamber, the House of Representatives, from the Senate across the hall, are the words of the traditionalist titan of the Republican Party – and no fan of Donald Trump – Senator Mitt Romney:

“Now, I know that the shock jocks and online instigators have riled up many in the far reaches of my party. But if your position is being cheered by Vladimir Putin, it’s time to reconsider your position.”

It was the sheer chutzpah and brazen confidence of the ambassador’s performance that was most striking.

His words speak volumes about the way Russia believes this war is now moving in its favour.

Andrei Kelin, Vladimir Putin’s ambassador to the UK, is a career civil servant.

In an interview with Sky News’ Yalda Hakim, he chose his words and tone carefully.

He was able to sound assured because Ukrainians are not winning this war and at times he was even able to rub salt in their wounds.

He claimed the frontline in Ukraine is moving steadily westwards and the country is struggling to fund and resource its war effort.

Russia, on the other hand, has weathered the worst of Western sanctions and its military industrial complex is more than up to the challenge of supplying its war effort.

That is broadly speaking true, give or take some hyperbole, and it highlights the perilous state of Ukraine’s war machine given ongoing doubts about continued American financial support.

The West should now understand its mistakes in supporting Ukraine, Mr Kelin said.

Ukraine should also accept that resisting the invasion was a mistake.

An astonishing claim.

God knows how many more atrocities like Bucha would have been visited on Ukraine had it not put up a fight.

Quite some chutzpah from the ambassador then given the quite staggering cost of the war to Russia – 300,000 troops dead or injured, thousands of tanks destroyed and its economy cut off from the West.

But that is not the point.

Mr Kelin’s ability to even half-land some punches on Ukraine and the West’s flagging record in this war highlights the way the conflict is going.

The brutal truth is the Putin regime has got away with taking chunks out of its neighbour by force.

In a stomach-churning moment, Mr Kelin laughed as he taunted Ukrainians for not surrendering Mariupol early enough to avoid its destruction.

That will anger people watching in Ukraine the most.

Bizarrely, he said most of the city’s population had been Greek – as if that made its fate more acceptable.

The port city had many nationalities but most were Ukrainian and more than 10,000 people died when it was annihilated by Russian forces.

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If diplomacy is the patriotic art of lying for one’s country, the ambassador is an accomplished practitioner of its dark arts.

He peddled the Kremlin’s false narratives that peace talks were singlehandedly scuppered by Boris Johnson, NATO was installing bases in Ukraine and that Russia is a working democracy.

But then this is the same ambassador who told Sky News that Russia had no plans to invade Ukraine a month before it did just that.

But there is some truth in his assessment of the state of the war, or enough of it to worry the West.

Ukraine has failed to dislodge the invaders.

The West has failed to punish Russia for its unprovoked aggression.

And now Russian diplomats are sounding increasingly confident as they mock and taunt the victims of their invasion.