Russia Opens Up New Front in Northeastern Ukraine

Happy Tuesday! To the powers that be at The Dispatch, consider this our official request to relocate the office to William F. Buckley’s eight-bedroom childhood home in Sharon, Connecticut, on the market for a cool $5.5 million. 

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday morning local time in a show of support for Ukraine as the country’s troops battle invading Russian forces on a new front in the northeast. According to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, Blinken will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss “battlefield updates, the impact of new U.S. security and economic assistance, long-term security and other commitments, and ongoing work to bolster Ukraine’s economic recovery.” 
• Prosecutors in the United Kingdom charged three men on Monday with spying on behalf of the Hong Kong intelligence service in violation of the U.K.’s National Security Act, alleging the men broke into a U.K. residence on May 1. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China, and Chinese authorities have denied any involvement on the part of Hong Kong’s intelligence agency. Last week, U.K. officials expelled a Russian diplomat accused of spying, though the cases are not believed to be related.
• The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which oversees interstate electricity transmission, issued two new rules on Monday aimed at expanding green energy. One requires utility companies to make plans for energy supply and demand—including planning for potential disruptions due to extreme weather—over at least two decades, and another gives FERC the authority to grant permits to long-distance power lines, which could allow wind and solar energy produced primarily in the Southwest to move efficiently to urban areas. 
• Several major U.S. airlines sued the Department of Transportation on Monday over a rule that requires greater transparency from airlines about the fees they charge passengers. The airlines, including United, Delta, and American Airlines, say the Biden administration is overstepping its authority with the rule and that it “will greatly confuse consumers who will be inundated with information that will only serve to complicate the buying process.”
• Michael Cohen, once a fixer for former President Donald Trump, took the stand on Monday in Trump’s New York criminal trial. Cohen, the prosecution’s star witness, directly implicated Trump in his payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and others and testified that the then-presidential candidate was primarily concerned about how news of his affair with Daniels would affect his electoral prospects. Cohen testified that Trump wanted the relationship kept quiet until after the 2016 election. “If I win, it will have no relevance because I’m president,” Cohen recalled Trump saying. “And if I lose, I don’t even care.” Cohen will retake the stand Tuesday for the prosecution before facing cross-examination from Trump’s lawyers, who are likely to try to impugn his credibility.

Russia Goes on the Offensive in Kharkiv

When Russia opened a new front in northeastern Ukraine on Friday, thousands of Ukrainians were faced with a wrenching choice: Leave, or risk their lives to stay in their homes. “If I am needed here, then may God protect me here,” one resident told the Kyiv Independent. “And [if] he needs me up there, let him take me as long as it doesn’t hurt.”

Some 6,000 civilians have made the choice to flee as their villages were, in the words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, “turned from a gray zone into a combat zone.” Russian attacks on the Kharkiv region continued through the weekend, opening another front in the war and potentially marking the start of a large Russian summer offensive against Ukraine. The new front, though not yet the site of a major incursion, will stretch Ukrainian forces as the country waits for U.S. aid to catch up after a months-long pause in arms shipments.

The northern part of the front has remained more or less stable since Ukraine’s counteroffensive began in the fall of 2022, with fighting instead concentrated in eastern and southeastern Ukraine. But over the weekend, Russia launched a cross-border attack in northern Kharkiv, opening up a new …

As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our full 1,438-word story on Russia’s latest offensive in Ukraine is available in the members-only version of TMD.

Worth Your Time

• We wrote to you several weeks ago about the United Kingdom’s Cass Review, which examined the evidence around gender-transition treatment for minors and concluded that “for most young people, a medical pathway will not be the best way to manage their gender-related distress.” This week, Dr. Hilary Cass herself spoke to the New York Times’ Azeen Ghorayshi about the effect of her report in her own country and across the pond. “It wouldn’t be too much of a problem if people were saying ‘This is clinical consensus and we’re not sure,’” Cass said of American medical associations’ dismissal of her report, which suggested there was “remarkably weak” evidence on the effects of hormone treatments for young people. “But what some organizations are doing is doubling down on saying the evidence is good. And I think that’s where you’re misleading the public. You need to be honest about the strength of the evidence and say what you’re going to do to improve it. I suspect that the [American Academy of Pediatrics], which is an organization that does massive good for children worldwide, and I see as a fairly left-leaning organization, is fearful of making any moves that might jeopardize trans health care right now. And I wonder whether, if they weren’t feeling under such political duress, they would be able to be more nuanced, to say that multiple truths exist in this space—that there are children who are going to need medical treatment, and that there are other children who are going to resolve their distress in different ways.”
• It sounds like something out of an episode of a sci-fi television show: mining asteroids for their cosmic riches. But as Sarah Scoles reported for Undark magazine, it could soon be reality. “In April 2023, a satellite the size of a microwave launched to space,” she wrote. “Its goal: to get ready to mine asteroids. While the mission, courtesy of a company called AstroForge, ran into problems, it’s part of a new wave of would-be asteroid miners hoping to cash in on cosmic resources. Potential applications of space-mined material abound: Asteroids contain metals like platinum and cobalt, which are used in electronics and electric vehicle batteries, respectively. … The pull of space rocks remains powerful and the new crop of companies hopeful. The economic picture has improved with the cost of rocket launches decreasing, as has the regulatory environment, with countries creating laws specifically allowing space mining. But only time will tell if this decade’s prospectors will cash in where others have drilled into the red or be buried by their business plans.” 

Presented Without Comment

Axios: ‘Kick That F**king Door Down,’ [Vice President Kamala] Harris Says During AAPI Event 

“Sometimes people will open the door for you and leave it open,” she said. “Sometimes they won’t. And then you need to kick that f–king door down.”

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In the Zeitgeist

It’s graduation season! Graduates across the country will get a lot of boilerplate—or just downright stupid—advice over the next few weeks as major and minor celebrities opine on the meaning of life in commencement speeches. We think Jerry Seinfeld, in his remarks to the graduates of Duke University, got it right: “Do not lose your sense of humor. … Not enough of life makes sense for you to be able to survive it without humor.” 

Toeing the Company Line

• In the newsletters: Kevin panned (🔒) a new legislative proposal to “cancel” hundreds of billions of dollars in medical debt, the Dispatch Politics crew checked in on the Maryland Senate race, and Nick argued that (🔒) even the best-case outcome of the presidential election is pretty grim.
• On the podcasts: Sarah and David discuss Trump’s New York criminal trial and how the former president might respond to the results of the election on Advisory Opinions. 
• On the site: Charlotte reports on recent scrutiny of Israel’s military and humanitarian strategy, Chris digs into the latest battleground state polling and what it means for Biden, and ​​Mark Caleb Smith and Emma Blakemore explain the Antisemitism Awareness Act.