When Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2014, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. pressed President Barack Obama to take decisive action, and fast, to make Moscow “pay in blood and money” for its aggression. The president, a Biden aide recalled, was
having none of it.

The president flatly rejected the idea and dispatched him to the region as an emissary, cautioning him “about not overpromising to the Ukrainian government,” Mr. Biden would later write in a memoir.

So, Mr. Biden threw himself into what seemed like standard-issue vice-presidential stuff: prodding Ukraine’s leaders to tackle the rampant corruption that made their country a risky bet for international lenders — and pushing reform of Ukraine’s
cronyism-ridden energy industry.

“You have to be whiter than snow, or the whole world will abandon you,” Mr. Biden told the country’s newly elected president

That message was delivered just as Mr. Biden’s son Hunter joined the board of a Ukrainian gas company that was the subject of multiple corruption investigations, a position that paid him as much as $50,000 a month and — in the view of some
administration officials, including the ambassador to Kiev — threatened to undermine Mr. Biden’s agenda

Mr. Biden dived into Ukraine in hopes of burnishing his statesman credentials at a time when he seemed to be winding down his political career. It turned out to be an unforgiving landscape — threatened by Russia, plundered by oligarchs, plagued by
indecisive leaders and overrun by outsiders hoping to make a quick buck off the chaos.

Writing in his 2017 memoir, Mr. Biden said Ukraine gave him a chance to fulfill a childhood promise to make a difference in the world. It also came to serve a political purpose, as “a legacy project, something he could run on,”

In the end, it was an unglamorous holding action, but one that suited Mr. Biden’s Mr. Fix-It approach to the vice presidency — and his view of Ukraine as the front line in a larger battle to contain the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin.

“People forget it now, but at that time period, 2014 and 2015, it wasn’t clear Ukraine would survive,” Mr. Darden said. “They were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. They had only 8,000 battle-ready troops.”

A key to Mr. Biden’s relevance as vice president was his willingness to take jobs nobody else wanted. Mr. Biden had deep contacts in Europe, and as a senator in the 1990s had had some success persuading President Bill Clinton to take action in the
Balkans. He considered himself to be among the few people in Mr. Obama’s orbit who understood Europe and were willing to challenge Mr. Putin

While Mr. Biden’s pitch for missiles was rebuffed, he eventually helped sell Mr. Obama on sending about 100 American service members to train Ukraine’s security forces.

Indeed, the drive to provide lethal aid to Kiev was a group effort, pushed by senators and two powerful State Department officials: Geoffrey R. Pyatt, who was the ambassador in Kiev, and Victoria J. Nuland, then the hawkish assistant secretary for
European and Eurasian affairs.

Ms. Nuland was overheard telling Mr. Pyatt they needed Mr. Biden “for an attaboy” to encourage Ukrainian leaders to fulfill their promises, during a 2013 phone conversation about Ukraine, bugged and released to the media.

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