Happy Friday! The European Commission announced plans Thursday to cut red tape on agricultural subsidies, and China reached an agreement with the San Diego Zoo to send two pandas back to the States. Does TMD get results or what?

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• Israel’s war cabinet agreed on Thursday to send Israeli representatives to hostage negotiations expected to be held in Paris today, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opted against sending negotiators to a meeting in Cairo earlier this month. The decision came as U.S. officials have been pushing Israel to participate in the talks. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told White House Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk on Thursday that the delegation would have a wider mandate for the talks, but the Israeli Defense Forces “will continue to expand its ground operation in Gaza.” 
• Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, the chair of the House select committee on the Chinese Communist Party, led a bipartisan congressional delegation with four colleagues on the committee to Taiwan on Thursday. The group met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei and President-elect Lai Ching-te, who is currently vice president. “The United States, Democrats and Republicans, stands with Taiwan, for your freedom and for ours,” Gallagher said at a press conference. “For as Taiwan goes, so goes the world.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning reiterated yesterday China’s opposition to “official interaction between the U.S. and Taiwan authorities.”
• The White House announced Thursday that new sanctions on Iran will be imposed “in the coming days” in response to existing Iranian support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. White House national security spokesman John Kirby referenced Iran’s reported move to send ballistic missiles to Russia, saying that, although the U.S. has “not seen any confirmation” the missiles have been transferred, “we have no reason to believe they will not follow through.” If the missiles are sent, Kirby said, the U.S. will impose additional sanctions. Also on Thursday, President Joe Biden met with Alexei Navalny’s widow and daughter in California, promising additional sanctions on Russia to be announced today. 
• Tens of thousands of AT&T customers experienced cell phone outages beginning early Thursday morning and lasting into the afternoon. The company did not disclose what brought service down, but the Federal Communications Commission and other federal agencies are investigating. “AT&T has no reason to think this was a cybersecurity incident,” Kirby told reporters. 
• The lunar lander Odysseus, built by Intuitive Machines of Houston, successfully landed on the moon Thursday night, the first time a U.S. craft has touched down on the moon’s surface in more than 50 years. “I know this was a nail-biter, but we are on the surface and we are transmitting,” said company CEO Steve Altemus, referencing a rough landing sequence that required an additional orbit. “Welcome to the moon.” Odysseus’ journey marks the first time a commercial craft has landed on the moon in U.S. history.

A Grim Anniversary

Most Ukrainians went to sleep the night of February 23, 2022, unaware that, by morning, their lives would be forever changed.

They awoke the following morning to the sound of Russian bombs hitting their cities—the beginning of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Two years on, Russia’s war has decimated much of the eastern part of the country, flattening once-vibrant cities, tearing families apart, and displacing millions of people. But the conflict hasn’t just permanently altered the lives of Ukrainians or changed the topography of their country: It’s affected the global geopolitical landscape as well, in ways that may endure past the war’s eventual end. 

There’s no doubt that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has exacted a staggering human toll. More than 6 million of Ukraine’s pre-war population of about 43 million people have fled the country, according to U.N. reports. Another 3 million are internally displaced. More than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and roughly 20,000 more injured—with the first full month of the war, March 2022, accounting for more than 7,000 deaths or injuries. Among those March casualties were at least 458 civilians murdered in Bucha, a town outside Kyiv. Meticulous investigations of this massacre suggest a particular unit of Russian soldiers likely committed war crimes.

Bucha is not the only city where such atrocities allegedly occurred: Ukrainian authorities say they’ve verified the names of at least 19,000 Ukrainian children who have been abducted, systematically taken from their parents and sent to Russian-occupied territories or into Russia itself in an effort to turn them against their home country. The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest for the practice. 

The recent battle for control of Avdiivka, a city that has resisted Russian occupation in some form or another for a decade, underscored the …

As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our full 2,207-word story on the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is available in the members-only version of TMD.

Worth Your Time

• Writing for his Kyiv-based Substack, The Counteroffensive, Tim Mak provided deep reporting on the dramatic battle of Antonov Airfield the day Russia invaded Ukraine. “This single moment was the point of maximum danger and vulnerability for the survival of the modern Ukrainian state,” he wrote. “Having taken the airfield in an air assault, the Russians now had the opportunity to land massive cargo planes filled with armored vehicles and thousands of troops, right in the suburbs of Kyiv. With that ability, the city could fall within hours, and with it, the democratically-elected government. … During the disorganized, frenzied battle that followed, Ukrainian resistance—and luck—turned the tide of the entire war. This epic stand by the people who fought at Antonov Airfield pierced the idea of Russian military superiority, and of a quick military victory. Shocked as they were about the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian morale skyrocketed with this tale of resistance. The story of this epic, 36-hour battle is also the story of how Ukrainians prevented Kyiv from falling into Russian hands.”
• In his latest op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove argued the 2024 presidential election will be chaotic and difficult to predict. “In this age of near-parity between Democrats and Republicans, candidates must get 90 percent or more of their party’s followers and carry independents to win,” he wrote. “But there’s more to the 2024 campaign than 1+1=victory. … More than any election in recent memory, this one involves contingencies piled on uncertainties topped by imponderables. It’d require an impossibly large whiteboard to diagram this complicated campaign equation. In a normal year, either man would be vulnerable and easy pickings. But this isn’t a normal year.”

Presented Without Comment

President Joe Biden, in remarks after “canceling” another $1.2 billion in student loans for about 153,000 borrowers:

Early in my term, I announced a major plan to provide millions of working families with debt relief for their college student debt. Tens of millions of people in debt were literally about to be canceled, their debts. But my MAGA Republican friends in the Congress, elected officials, and special interests stepped in and sued us and the Supreme Court blocked it, they blocked it. But that didn’t stop me. I announced we’re going to pursue alternative paths for student debt relief for as many borrowers as possible.

Also Presented Without Comment

Associated Press: [Major League Baseball] Players Miffed at Sport’s New See-Through Pants, Relaying Concerns to League

Also Also Presented Without Comment

The Hill: Jan. 6 Pinball Game Featured at CPAC Exhibit

Toeing the Company Line

• This weekend will feature two special editions of Dispatch Live! On Saturday at 4 p.m. ET/ 1 p.m. PT, Jonah, Steve, Mary, and Declan will be joined by (🔒) Tim Mak and Bennett Murray—two reporters who’ve been on the ground in Ukraine—to discuss the second anniversary of the war in Ukraine. Additionally, The Dispatch panel—Sarah, Jonah, Steve, and Mike—at the Principles First summit will be streamed and available to both members and non-members on Sunday at 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT. Keep an eye on your inbox for more information about how to tune in.
• In the newsletters: Nick wondered (🔒) if Joe Biden is actually getting a raw deal from the media as many liberals are claiming.
• On the podcasts: Jonah and David (French) discussed the much-anticipated release of Dune: Part Two on The Skiff (🔒). 
• On the site: Bennett Murray reports from the front lines in Ukraine on soldiers’ morale two years into the war, and Richard Goldberg slams what he argues is the Biden administration’s self-interested (and pointless) proposed deal for Hezbollah and Israel.