The War Room: Russia claims today that two Ukrainian helicopters crossed the border and attacked an oil depot. If true, it would be the first Ukrainian attack in Russian territory.

  In Mariupol in the southeast, the mayor says evacuation of the remaining citizens is underway. The Russians have blocked previous efforts and even abducted thousands of area residents and taken them into Russia. As many as 2,000 people were reported to be on buses today, but as many as 100,000 are still in the destroyed city.

  Russian troops have begun leaving the Chernobyl nuclear plant after many of them were contaminated with “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches at the highly contaminated site, according to Ukraine’s state power company.  Chernobyl is the site of the 1986 nuclear accident, the worst in the history of nuclear power plants.

  The director of Britain’s electronic surveillance agency said that Russian forces are struggling with low morale, a shortage of weapons, have refused to follow orders, and in their bungling have even shot down their own aircraft.   

  “We know Putin’s campaign is beset by problems — low morale, logistical failures and high Russian casualty numbers,” said Jeremy Fleming, who runs the Government Communications Headquarters. “Their command and control is in chaos.”

  Fleming said that Putin’s initial battle plan “is failing,” adding that “his Plan B has been more barbarity against civilians and cities.”

  Vladimir Putin signed an order calling for 134,500 new conscripts for his army, but the Russian defense ministry says it has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine. As always, you can’t believe a word they say. If the draftees are for the war, it would be months before they’re ready for the fight. 

Oil War: President Biden announced that he will release a million barrels a day from the strategic oil reserve in an effort to ease the price of gasoline at the pump. He would release up to 180 million barrels, a third of the reserve.

  Biden blamed Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine for the spike in prices of oil and gasoline. “Our prices are rising because of Putin’s action,” the President said, referring to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. “There isn’t enough supply. And the bottom line is if we want lower gas prices, we need to have more oil supply right now.”

Economic War: Russia will stop gas supplies to “unfriendly” states unless they start paying in rubles starting today, said President Vladimir Putin, putting economic pressure on European countries cooperating with economic sanctions against the warring country.  

  “To buy Russian gas, they need to open ruble accounts in Russian banks,” Putin said in a televised speech. “If such payments aren’t made, we will consider this a failure by the client to comply with its obligations.”

  Buyers would have to open special accounts in the state-controlled Gazprombank to allow foreign currency to be swapped for rubles to pay their bills, according to the order Putin signed.

The Voting Booth: A federal judge in Florida has struck down parts of a year-old Florida voting law saying they were unconstitutional and racially motivated.

  Many Republican legislatures passed voting laws following the unfounded claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

  Judge Mark Walker of the Federal District Court in Tallahassee said in his order that, “For the past 20 years, the majority in the Florida Legislature has attacked the voting rights of its Black constituents.” He said that the legislature’s actions were “part of a cynical effort to suppress turnout among their opponents’ supporters. That, the law does not permit.”

  Democrats can be equally guilty of trying to skew the vote their way. Earlier this week a judge in New York  struck down the state’s new congressional and legislative maps drawn by Democrats because they violate the constitutional amendment to end partisan gerrymandering. 

Eye on CBS: Insiders at CBS News are reported to be unhappy about the network hiring former Trump administration staffer Mick Mulvaney as a conservative voice heading into the fall elections. CBS News co-president Neeraj Khemlani told the staff of the morning show, “Being able to make sure that we are getting access to both sides of the aisle is a priority because we know the Republicans are going to take over, most likely, in the midterms.”

  Among many things Mulvaney did as Budget Director and Chief of Staff for Donald Trump, he withheld $400 million from Ukraine in Trump’s effort to dig dirt on Hunter Biden, the current president’s son, leading to Trump’s first impeachment.

  The Washington Post quotes one staffer saying, “I know everyone I talked to today was embarrassed about the hiring.” 

Nor Gloom of Night:  The House Oversight Committee announced plans to quiz the US Postal service about its plans to buy 148,000 new delivery trucks that get an average of 8.6 miles per gallon.  Only 10 percent of the fleet to be bought over 10 years would be electric. The White House wants the entire federal civilian vehicle fleet to be electric by 2035, and postal vehicles would be the vast majority.

“Mother” : Little known in world in which getting tattooed is a major fad, tattooing in South Korea is illegal except by a medical professional. The country’s constitutional court upheld the ban yesterday.

  Despite the ban, though, South Korea has as many as 50,000 tattoo artists who risk fines of more than $40,000 and even two years in prison. Tattooing in South Korea has become even more frequent because of the country’s increasingly popular – and tattooed – K-Pop bands. They want the law inked out.

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