The Hill’s Morning Report – Russia-Ukraine war enters second deadly week

by Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver - 03/03/22 6:43 AM ET

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As Russian and Ukrainian forces enter a second week of bloody, destructive warfare, United Nations and international condemnations aimed at the Kremlin continue to pile up as one million Ukrainians have fled their country, sanctions hobble the Russian economy and officials from both countries plan to meet in Belarus today to ponder opposing views about how to end the fighting.

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that Russian forces laid siege to two strategic Ukrainian seaports and continued bombarding Kharkiv, the country’s second-biggest city, including with paratroopers, while an armored Russian convoy threatening Kyiv appeared stalled outside the capital. Two cruise missiles hit a hospital in northern Ukraine in the city of Chernihiv. Russia said it now controls the strategically important southern city of Kherson, a significant defeat for Ukraine northwest of the Crimean peninsula (The Associated Press and NBC News).

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States is open to a diplomatic path to end the war, but doubts the Kremlin has that in mind. He said Russia “goes through the pretense of diplomacy to distract and continue it on its aggressive path” (The New York Times). Blinken’s counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, said today that his country will fight against Ukraine to “the end” (Reuters).

Russia reported its military casualties for the first time since its unprovoked invasion began, saying nearly 500 of its troops have been killed and almost 1,600 wounded – figures impossible to verify (The Hill). Ukraine did not disclose its own military losses but said more than 2,000 civilians have died, a claim that could not be independently confirmed. The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into possible Russian war crimes.

The Associated Press: In a historic vote, the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday condemned Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

The Hill: The Russian economy is sustaining “serious blows,” the Kremlin said.

Among major companies suspending activities in the region, Toyota announced it will temporarily halt sales and production activities in Russia and Ukraine (The Washington Post).

Concern is rising about Ukraine’s four operating nuclear power plants. Residents of Enerhodar, home to a major nuclear plant (pictured below), took to the streets on Wednesday in a bid to block Russian forces (drone video HERE). Russia told the International Energy Agency that it now controls land around the largest Ukraine nuclear power plant (BNN Bloomberg).

In Washington, the White House officially is seeking $10 billion in emergency assistance for Ukraine as part of congressional wrangling over a larger U.S. government funding package poised for votes by next week.

President Biden, traveling in Wisconsin on Wednesday, repeated his administration’s commitments to Ukraine and to NATO countries while describing Russian President Vladimir Putin as “isolated from the rest of the world, more than ever.” He accused Russia’s military of “clearly” targeting Ukrainian civilians and residential areas, and he said a U.S. ban on Russian oil imports, proposed on Capitol Hill, is not “off the table.” The United States imports about 90,000 barrels of petroleum per day from Russia, according to 2021 data.

Biden will confer with the prime ministers of Australia, India and Japan this morning via virtual hookup about the situation in Ukraine and its impact on the Indo-Pacific region.

Although Russia is increasingly a pariah in the West, a significant Moscow ally is China, which has publicly said it opposes sanctions as well as NATO enlargement and has not publicly rebuked Russia for its attacks on Ukraine. China asked Russia in early February to delay its military invasion of Ukraine until after the Beijing Winter Olympics ended, according to classified Western intelligence reported by The New York Times on Wednesday and confirmed by other news outlets. The Olympics closing ceremony took place Feb. 20. Russian troops entered eastern Ukraine the following day, and full-scale attacks on Ukraine began Feb. 24. American and European officials say they are dubious the timing was coincidence.

Ukraine Ambassador to the United Nations Sergiy Kyslytsya, who has received worldwide news coverage for recent fiery, emotional presentations condemning Russia and underscoring the human toll of war, received pro bono speech writing help in the United States from Stephen Krupin, SKDKnickerbocker’s managing director and head of executive communications, according to a Justice Department filing, O’Dwyer’s report PR News and Politico. Krupin has written material for top Democrats including former President Obama and John Kerry.

Time: How Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky defended Ukraine and united the world (cover HERE).

⚽ The international sports world has reacted swiftly to Ukraine’s plight, including in soccer (The Hill).

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, one of the most valuable franchises in European football, is reportedly moving quickly to sell “in the best interest of the Club, the fans, the employees, as well as the Club’s sponsors and partners.” The sale is set to take place amid heightened pressure to sanction Russian oligarchs who are considered close to Putin. Chelsea is valued in excess of $3 billion (The Washington Post).

Elsewhere in the football universe, EA Sports on Wednesday said that its FIFA video game would remove the Russian National team and Russian clubs from its offerings.

The news extended to the Olympic scene where the International Paralympic Committee banned Russian and Belarussian athletes from taking part in the Winter Paralympic games.The move will affect 83 athletes from the two nations (The Guardian).

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LEADING THE DAY

CONGRESS: The Biden administration this morning issued a new request to approve $32.5 billion in aid to Ukraine and for the U.S.’s efforts to combat COVID-19, a sizable sum that is sure to complicate talks to land a long-term spending deal by the March 11 deadline.

$10 billion of the request would go to Ukraine, with the remaining going toward virus-related efforts. According to The Washington Post, White House officials have indicated recently that there is enough funding as is to deal with the tail end of the omicron surge, but that significant portions of previously-allocated funds have dried up and new monies for testing, therapeutics and vaccines to protect against a new wave are needed.

“Given the rapidly evolving situation in Ukraine, I anticipate that additional needs may arise over time,” Shalanda Young, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a letter to members, adding that she “anticipate(s) that additional funding will be needed to support the COVID-19 response.”

The Hill: Jan. 6 panel claims Trump “engaged in criminal conspiracy.”

> Agenda politics: With the State of the Union in the rearview mirror, attention turned on Wednesday to the future of Biden’s agenda and whether he and Democrats will be able to pass any semblance of his dormant Build Back Better agenda.

On cue, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who torpedoed the president’s cornerstone proposal in December, laid out a dramatically scaled back version on Wednesday that he says he could vote for as part of a budget reconciliation process. According to Manchin, he could support a proposal that reforms the tax code and lowers the cost of prescription drugs if the money raised is split between spending on new climate change proposals and deficit reduction and fighting inflation.

The West Virginia centrist added that he has not made any formal counter proposal to Biden or White House officials but is instead cobbling together the outlines of a bill he and the other 49 senators who caucus with the Democrats could hop on board with.

One thing that will not stick around is the name. During Tuesday’s address, Biden notably did not mention “Build Back Better,” having used the term “Building a better America” while discussing specific provisions that were part of the initial proposal.

“There’s not a proposal, there’s just a conversation,” Manchin said of informal talks with the White House (The Hill).

The New York Times: As Biden pivots, Democrats seek to salvage His domestic agenda.

> Supreme nomination: Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) indicated on Wednesday that he hopes to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court in early April before lawmakers leave for a two-week break.

“We want to do this fairly but expeditiously. … We would like to get this done and have the judge approved by the Senate before the Easter break,” Schumer told reporters after his meeting with the judge.

The Senate is scheduled to leave town on April 8. The New York Democrat’s plan lines up with the 30 to 40 days the White House and top Democrats have eyed as a timeline between the formal announcement until a confirmation vote (The Hill).

The April confirmation plan comes as Jackson kicked off her meetings on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, which featured sit-downs with Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the leading GOP member on the panel.

McConnell and other top Republicans are signaling that the confirmation will be a lower-stakes battle compared to recent fights that have battered the Senate. Instead, conservatives remain focused on issues that could help them retake the Senate and House in November: Inflation, crime and the economy.

CNN: Confirmation hearings for Jackson set to begin on March 21.

The Hill: Partisan cracks emerge over how to implement $1 trillion infrastructure law.

The Hill: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell lays out cautious plan to raise interest rates, combat high inflation.

*****

ADMINISTRATION: The morning after his State of the Union address, Biden bundled up and flew to Superior, Wis., to showcase a deteriorating bridge between Wisconsin and Minnesota, two of the Midwestern states he won in 2020. The Blatnik Bridge, both an actual and symbolic presidential messaging device, is scheduled to be repaired over the next decade, thanks in part to the bipartisan infrastructure law Biden signed in November and touts as a Washington achievement of benefit nationwide.

Minnesota will receive an estimated $4.8 billion for roads and bridges, and Wisconsin is to receive an estimated $5.4 billion (Star Tribune). None of Minnesota’s GOP House members voted for the infrastructure law, which has prompted some tough questions in local communities now that the federal resources are on the way. The bridge over the St. Louis River will likely need significant truss repairs in the next 10 to 15 years. It is one of the 979 bridges in Wisconsin and 661 bridges in Minnesota described as in poor condition.

Speaking later on Wednesday at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, the president said the repair of the 61-year-old span is an example of what’s to come under his rebranded “Building a better America” policy agenda. “We’ll rebuild this bridge with U.S. steel,” he said.

> Many fellow Democrats were relieved to hear the president’s centrist appeals to Congress and to voters during his Tuesday night address, report The Hill’s Amie Parnes and Morgan Chalfant. The speech may not have been a detailed political playbook for all Democratic candidates, but it highlighted many of the centrist goals that helped catapult Biden to the White House in 2020. “I was happy to see the return of that guy, because the cater-to-everyone Joe Biden wasn’t working,” said one Democratic strategist. Biden firmly rejected progressives’ “defund the police” narrative and called for resources and training to bolster law enforcement. He also embraced securing the U.S. southern border as well as legislative fixes for the immigration system, goals that divide the two parties in Congress.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

POLITICS: Fresh off an intra party clash, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) told The Hill in an interview that his 11-point GOP agenda could change and be altered after it received public resistance from McConnell and other top Senate Republicans

Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), told The Hill’s Reid Wilson in an exclusive interview that he will continue to work on the policy agenda he released last week. The committee chairman added that GOP candidates would run their own races independent of his proposals even though his blueprint was already the subject of Democratic attack ads, specifically over his calls for those who do not pay income tax to do so and for programs such as Social Security and Medicaid to end.

“I put out some policy ideas. I’m going to keep working on this. There’s going to be things people agree with and don’t agree with. There’s going to be, you know, changes we’ll make as people give us their thoughts, but I want to have a conversation about what we do,” Scott said. “This is what Rick Scott believes in, it’s not the Republican plan. I was very clear that it’s Rick Scott’s policy ideas. It’s nobody else’s policy ideas.”

McConnell came out fiercely against the tax portions of the plan, telling reporters on Tuesday that the ideas had no place in a Senate GOP agenda as long as he is leader. The Republican leader has resisted releasing a party agenda for a future GOP-led Senate, having instead sought to highlight Democratic troubles to combat inflation, among other issues.

The Hill: Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) on glide path to reelection a year after former President Trump’s primary threats.

> Post-primary mayhem: Rep. Van Taylor (R-Texas) announced on Wednesday that he will no longer seek reelection to Congress this year after admitting to an extramarital affair and being pushed into a runoff on Tuesday night in his primary contest.

Taylor admitted to the affair on Wednesday two days after allegations of infidelity were published by Breitbart News. According to the story, Taylor had a monthslong affair with Tania Joya, a Plano, Texas, woman, who said that he paid her $5,000 in hush money. As The Texas Tribune notes, Joya is known as a former jihadist who was previously married to an Islamic State commander.

“About a year ago, I made a horrible mistake that has caused deep hurt and pain among those I love most in this world,” Taylor told his supporters in an email. “I had an affair, it was wrong, and it was the greatest failure of my life. I want to apologize for the pain I have caused with my indiscretion, most of all to my wife Anne and our three daughters.”

Taylor won 49 percent of the vote on Tuesday, putting him in a runoff in May against challenger Keith Self, who raked in 27 percent, having also been under fire for his vote to uphold the 2020 presidential election results. The sitting lawmaker will have his name removed from the ballot by March 16, with Self becoming the nominee for the seat in November.

The Hill: Progressive policies lose steam amid primary wins.

Niall Stanage: The Memo: Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-Color.) antics blasted as another twist in politics’ downward spiral.

*****

CORONAVIRUS: Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported each morning this week: Monday, 948,397; Tuesday, 950,481; Wednesday, 952,509; Thursday, 954,519.

> Biden declared on Tuesday night that the U.S. is shifting into a new gear in its fight against COVID-19, with health officials making the move away from crisis mode to one where the focus is squarely on managing a lower level of overall risk from the virus.

As The Hill’s Peter Sullivan reports, the president’s shift was notable during the speech, telling Americans that the virus “no longer needs to control our lives.” The optics were also of importance as Biden, as most members of Congress and address attendees did not wear a mask. The speech also addressed new programs the administration is rolling out, including a “test to treat” initiative to allow people to get COVID-19 treatment pills from pharmacies on the spot if they test positive.

However, experts warn that this is all well and good until a new variant comes around, adding that now is the time to plan for that situation.

Politically, Tuesday also represented a major shift for Democrats away from the mask policies that have helped define them during the pandemic. A number of members who habitually wear masks, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), were spotted at Tuesday’s address without them.

According to The Hill’s Alexander Bolton, Democrats recognize that wearing masks is becoming a bad optic, that voters have grown frustrated with COVID-19 restrictions and that the situation has done no favors to Biden’s approval rating.

The New York Times: New York students shed masks, and elation mixes with trepidation.

The Boston Globe: Boston to lift mask mandate for some indoor spaces Saturday.

Reuters: Hong Kong government urges residents spooked by citywide lockdown not to panic.

The Morning Report is created by journalists Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver. We want to hear from you! Email: asimendinger@digital-release.thehill.com and aweaver@digital-release.thehill.com. We invite you to share The Hill’s reporting and newsletters, and encourage others to SUBSCRIBE!

OPINION

Putin’s war in Ukraine is an inflection point, by Robert A. Manning, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3K7ZXN2

Biden’s State of the Union was a visual representation of his new pandemic plan, by Leana S. Wen, contributing columnist, The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/35k8ZrJ

WHERE AND WHEN

The House meets at 9 a.m.

The Senate convenes at 10 a.m. and resumes consideration of the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022. The Senate Banking Committee hears testimony from the Fed’s chairman at 10 a.m. (he also testified to the House on Wednesday).

The president will hold a secure video call in the Situation Room at 9 a.m. with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio to discuss the Ukraine crisis and its implications for the Indo-Pacific region. Biden will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 11:15 a.m. He will convene a Cabinet meeting at 2 p.m. The president at 5 p.m. will deliver remarks before signing the “Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021.”

Vice President Harris will participate this afternoon in the meeting of the Cabinet, and at 5 p.m. deliver remarks at the bill signing with Biden, joined by Attorney General Merrick Garland and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh.

Blinken will travel to Belgium, Poland, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia today through Tuesday. His itinerary is described here.

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 1 p.m.

Hill.TV’s “Rising” program features news and interviews at http://digital-release.thehill.com/hilltv or on YouTube at 10:30 a.m. ET at Rising on YouTube.

ELSEWHERE

➜ REPATRIATION OF ANTIQUITIES: U.S. authorities returned to Jordan nine looted artifacts that were seized from U.S. billionaire hedge fund founder and collector Michael Steinhardt as part of a landmark deal announced in December. The artifacts, displayed on Tuesday in Amman, were among 180 items seized by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office as part of an agreement with Steinhardt to surrender trafficked artifacts and avoid prosecution. The deal capped a four-year investigation into Steinhardt’s possession of looted antiquities. “This is a testament to the United States’ commitment to help protect Jordan’s cultural heritage. With today’s repatriation of Jordanian antiquities, we are keeping this promise,” U.S. Ambassador to Jordan Henry Wooster said. Since the Manhattan District Attorney’s office announced the agreement in December, U.S. authorities have returned Steinhardt’s plundered artifacts to Turkey, Greece (seen below), Bulgaria, Libya, Iraq and now Jordan (The Associated Press).

➜ COURTS: Inmate Dylann Roof asked the Supreme Court to review his case after a lower federal appeals court declined to vacate the convictions and death sentence he was handed for racially motivated shootings in 2016 in Charleston, S.C., which resulted in the deaths of nine Black congregants at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. It was unclear what Roof and his attorney seek from the justices (The Hill).

THE CLOSER

And finally … It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for this week’s Morning Report Quiz! Inspired by the president’s big speech, we’re curious about what readers remember about the contents of Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.

Email your responses to asimendinger@digital-release.thehill.com and/or aweaver@digital-release.thehill.com, and please add “Quiz” to subject lines. Winners who submit correct answers will enjoy some richly deserved newsletter fame on Friday.

During his speech, which/who did Biden say “badly miscalculated”?