| Welcome to The Daily 202! Tell your friends to sign up here. On this day in 1967, the Beatles released the album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." There was a time in my early teens (1980s) when I knew every last lyric. Yes, even "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!" | | |  | The big idea | | Here's why Biden is providing Ukraine with advanced rockets |  President Biden announced in a New York Times opinion column that he "will provide the Ukrainians with more advanced rocket systems and munitions that will enable them to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine." (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post) | | | Russian President Vladimir Putin shows no sign of interest in resuming negotiations with Ukraine to end the largest conflict in Europe since World War II. There's no mystery as to why: His mistake-prone military has suffered shocking setbacks and losses, but he still figures he has more to gain on the battlefield than at the negotiating table. Okay, maybe "no sign of interest" mildly overstates the case. The Kremlin's official summary of a weekend phone call between Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Putin reaffirmed "openness to the resumption of dialogue." Sure, but he has refused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's repeated pleas for direct talks. Anyway, The Daily 202 has said this a few times before. Talks tend to reflect the expectations of combatants regarding whether they can get (and keep) what they want through continued fighting. You're unlikely to see a diplomatic breakthrough if both sides think they can do better through force of arms. | - And after a humbling start to the expanded war Putin launched Feb. 24 — the failed effort to knock out Zelensky's government, the apparent logistics failures, the heavy losses of men and materiel — he's seeing some incremental, hard-won gains.
| | Russia's refocused military campaign in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region has taken what's left of the coastal city of Mariupol. Putin's forces seem to control the town of Lyman, a key transportation hub. And then there's the news out of Severodonetsk. My colleague Ishaan Tahroor had this sobering analysis of the situation in that city, one of the last major population centers under Kyiv's control in Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region. | | "For Ukrainians, the news from the front lines is not encouraging. As the 100th day since Russia launched its invasion nears, the tide of battle in Ukraine's east seems to be turning in Moscow's favor." "On Monday, Russian troops entered the outskirts of Severodonetsk, one of the last strategically significant cities in the Luhansk region still under Ukrainian control. Should the city fall, it would give Russia and its proxy forces de facto authority over half of Donbas, the country's coveted eastern industrial heartland." My colleagues Siobhán O'Grady, Paul Sonne, Max Bearak and Anastacia Galouchka reported over the weekend: "The situation in the country's east marks a shift from an earlier stage of the war, when staunch Ukrainian defenses forced a broad Russian retreat in Kyiv and other areas, increasing confidence among Ukrainians and their Western backers about the prospects of all-out victory over a poorly organized and equipped Russian force." "Having now regrouped, Russian troops are making incremental but steady progress in their campaign in the east and are regularly employing heavy flamethrowers and long-range artillery that Ukrainian forces lack, leaving Kyiv on the back foot. Though Ukrainian resistance has made the fight a slog for Russian forces, Moscow is inching closer to encircling Ukraine's biggest strongholds in the Donbas region, while fighting on territory contiguous to Russia with easier supply lines," they wrote. | Biden sending advanced rockets | | Which gets us to Biden's announcement last night, in a New York Times opinion column, that he "will provide the Ukrainians with more advanced rocket systems and munitions that will enable them to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine." He did not specify the weapons system, or directly reference Russian gains in eastern Ukraine. But U.S. officials later confirmed he was referring to the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), a lighter-weight version of the Multiple Launch Rocket System. The Daily 202 looked at the MLRS on Tuesday. It would dramatically increase the range of Ukrainian artillery, though Biden aides said Ukraine would not use HIMARS against targets on Russian territory. | - Biden also rearticulated some of his "won'ts" — no unprovoked direct war between NATO and Russia, no attempt to remove Putin from power — and described providing the HIMARS as a way of strengthening Kyiv's hand in future talks with Moscow.
| | "Every negotiation reflects the facts on the ground," the president said. "Ukraine's talks with Russia are not stalled because Ukraine has turned its back on diplomacy. They are stalled because Russia continues to wage a war to take control of as much of Ukraine as it can." | | My colleagues Rachel Pannett and John Hudson chronicled the angry Russian response: "We believe that the United States is deliberately and diligently 'pouring fuel on the fire,'" Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a news briefing. "Such deliveries do not contribute to … the Ukrainian leadership's willingness to resume peace talks." But he also sent an unmistakable message at a time when some prominent voices in the West are pushing Ukraine to cede territory to Russia: The stick, not the carrot, is U.S. policy when it comes to Moscow. "I will not pressure the Ukrainian government — in private or public — to make any territorial concessions," he said. "It would be wrong and contrary to well-settled principles to do so." | | |  | What's happening now | | Job openings in April remain near record highs, U.S. employers report |  Hiring signs are displayed in front of restaurants in Rehoboth Beach, Del. (Stefani Reynolds / AFP) | | | "Some 4.4 million Americans quit or changed jobs in April, according to a report released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, using their leverage in a labor economy where job openings continue to outnumber job seekers by close to two-to-one. Employers reported hiring 6.6 million people in April," Abha Bhattarai reports. | - "In all, the labor market has added more than 6.5 million jobs in the past year and is on pace to return to pre-pandemic levels this summer. That brisk growth has empowered millions of workers to leave dissatisfying jobs."
| Record number of Americans back same-sex marriage, poll finds | | "Support for marriage equality remains high across the United States, with new Gallup polling published Wednesday finding that a record 71 percent of Americans are in favor of it. The results are slightly higher than last year's, when 70 percent of respondents backed same-sex marriage," the 19th's Orion Rummler reports. | - The findings carry extra significance following the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, Rummler explains. "LGBTQ+ legal experts have warned that overturning Roe could endanger marriage equality."
| Russia is holding drills involving launchers of nuclear-capable missiles | | "Russia's Defense Ministry said Wednesday its strategic missile forces were conducting exercises in Ivanovo, northeast of Moscow. According to media reports, the strategic missile division is Moscow's main force responsible for 'nuclear deterrence of possible aggression,'" Rachel Pannett reports. More key updates: | | |  | Lunchtime reads from The Post | | D.C. gun seizures are soaring — but charges aren't sticking | | "The experience in the District highlights how aggressive tactics to seize guns can exacerbate tensions with communities and collide with the realities of successful prosecutions. To substantiate a case in court, police must show they had legitimate reason to conduct a search and tie a gun to a specific person, which can be a difficult task," Peter Hermann reports. "And defense attorneys and criminal justice advocates say officers are often stopping young Black men on flimsy pretexts and bringing weak cases in a so-far-unsuccessful effort to quell shootings." | 'It's going to be an army': Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections | | "Video recordings of Republican Party operatives meeting with grassroots activists provide an inside look at a multi-pronged strategy to target and potentially overturn votes in Democratic precincts: Install trained recruits as regular poll workers and put them in direct contact with party attorneys," Politico's Heidi Przybyla reports. The plan, as outlined by a Republican National Committee staffer in Michigan, includes: | - Utilizing rules designed to provide political balance among poll workers to install party-trained volunteers prepared to challenge voters at Democratic-majority polling places
- Developing a website to connect those workers to local lawyers
- Establishing a network of party-friendly district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts at certain precincts
| | |  | The Biden agenda | | Biden battles CEOs in inflation blame game |  President Biden meets with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the Oval Office of the White House on Tuesday. (Evan Vucci/AP) | | | "Some top executives, especially in the banking sector, are now complaining that while Biden pays lip service to caring about their views on how to fix things, he doesn't actually listen to them or solicit their input. The finance industry is especially alarmed at the moment given the big losses in stocks and the impact of changing interest rates on their businesses," Politico's Ben White reports. | Biden confirms U.S. is sending advanced rocket systems to Ukraine | | "His announcement triggered an angry response in Moscow on Wednesday. 'We believe that the United States is deliberately and diligently 'pouring fuel on the fire,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a news briefing. 'Such deliveries do not contribute to … the Ukrainian leadership's willingness to resume peace talks,'" Rachel Pannett and John Hudson report. | The White House has one problem that rules them all: Gas prices | | "Senior officials and others close to President Joe Biden view those prices as the cost that most directly affects voters' everyday lives, and therefore their perception of the economy as well. As such, Biden and his top advisers fixate on them with an intensity that some aides describe as obsessive. White House chief of staff Ron Klain has grown particularly absorbed by the issue, checking the average price of a gallon of gas every morning," Politico's Adam Cancryn reports. | White House scrambles on inflation after Biden complains to aides | | "The White House launched a new push Tuesday to contain the political damage caused by inflation after President Biden complained for weeks to aides that his administration was not doing enough to publicly explain the fastest price increases in roughly four decades," Tyler Pager and Jeff Stein report. | Seizing Russian assets to help Ukraine sets off White House debate | | "The devastation in Ukraine brought on by Russia's war has leaders around the world calling for seizing more than $300 billion of Russian central bank assets and handing the funds to Ukraine to help rebuild the country. But the movement, which has gained momentum in parts of Europe, has run into resistance in the United States. Top Biden administration officials warned that diverting those funds could be illegal and discourage other countries from relying on the United States as a haven for investment," the New York Times's Alan Rappeport and David E. Sanger report. | | |  | How election modeling works, visualized | | | Our colleagues Adrian Blanco and Artur Galocha break down election modeling (and explain why The Post uses it) through Voteland, a fictional state heading to the polls to pick its new representative. "These models use complete results in a handful of counties and precincts, delve into those areas' demographics, and estimate what the vote could end up looking like in similar counties or precincts. As we'll explain below, we're not making official race call projections or declaring winners solely based on the model's data." | | |  | Hot on the left | | Inside the extremely offline attempt to convert minorities into Republicans | | "The RNC community center model is the latest attempt by Republicans to court nonwhite voters, who have long eschewed the party and been demonized by its leading representatives. But 2020's frenzied election returns suggested an opportunity," Alexander Sammon writes for the American Prospect. "The community centers were established to bore the opening further, making the appeal directly to racial minorities inside their communities, with an extremely offline, grassroots offering." | | |  | Hot on the right | | | The RNC's Jan. 6 committee strategy seeks some distance from Trump's election lies |  In this Jan. 6, 2021 photo, rioters supporting President Donald Trump storm the Capitol in Washington. (John Minchillo/AP) | | | "Republicans' strategy ahead of the first public hearings of the select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol reveals a rare glimpse of daylight between the aims of the party and the desires of former President Donald Trump," Vox's Ben Jacobs reports. "In a document obtained by Vox, a coordinated communications plan apparently sent from the Republican National Committee (RNC) recommends pushing back on the select committee as 'partisan' while also taking care not to be seen as explicitly speaking on behalf of Trump or embracing his lies about the 2020 election's legitimacy. The RNC declined to comment on whether it created or sent the document." | | |  | Today in Washington | | | Biden will meet virtually with officials and baby formula manufacturers at 2:30 p.m. to discuss efforts to ameliorate the shortage. | | |  | In closing | | Queen Elizabeth II: A visual timeline of her 70 years on the throne |  Art handlers pose with the work 'Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom (1985)' by U.S. artist Andy Warhol at the Phillips Gallery in London on Wednesday. (Neil Hall/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock) | | | Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow. | | |
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