On the menu today. Yup, it’s webathon day. Just think about how much of a relief it will be to say, “I already gave, Jim, stop nagging me.” Do me a favor. Read through this, and if you can spare a bit to donate, please do so, or subscribe — (just $65 for a year of the print magazine and digital!) and make me look good in front of the suits. And then we’ll get on to the fun stuff: A lot of Russians are finding that beach vacations in Crimea this summer are not enjoyable at all, wondering when Taiwan is going to receive all of those American weapons they ordered, and the Iranian mullahs start collecting their winnings from the memorandum of understanding. Read on.

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National Review is a unique and special news and opinion journal. If you’re reading this, you hopefully already know this, and will kick in a little pocket change, or subscribe if you haven’t already. But just in case you don’t or haven’t. . . .

We are not part of a larger conglomerate. We do not have to worry about any parent corporation that wants to keep access to markets in China; there are no National Review theme parks outside of Beijing or Shanghai. Not everybody in the news business can say that, and I think you can see the consequences of those interests in the coverage of China from certain other American news organizations.

No parent company with ties to China means that National Review can rip into the regime in Beijing without fear or favor, and you see that freedom in the writings of Noah Rothman, former chair of the State Department’s American Institute in Taiwan Thérèse Shaheen, Tiananmen Square survivor Jianli Yang, and others.

When the administration stands up to Xi Jinping and his autocratic regime, we applaud. When the administration acquiesces, we object.

You see the same in our approach to the cruel and barbaric regime in Iran, the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism. Blow the mullahs to kingdom come, and we’ll cheer; sign a memorandum of understanding that consists of a lot of front-loaded American concessions in exchange for the ayatollah’s promises, and we’re not going to skimp on the criticism.

To cover a murderous regime, you need a murderer’s row of writers, analysts and contributors — Noah, Phil Klein, former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, former Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy Seth Cropsey, and Rebeccah Heinrichs — a member of the U.S. Strategic Command Advisory Group.

Islamist terrorism is still out there, and you never know where you’re going to find former employees of al-Qaeda — even running for Congress in New Jersey, like Adam Hamawy. Our Andy McCarthy tangled with him during the trial of the Blind Sheikh and still keeps a close eye on Hamawy now. Working for an al-Qaeda front is the kind of life experience where even Graham Platner would say, “Man, that guy’s got problems.” I kid, I kid. When it comes to problems in Hamawy’s past, Platner does . . . not see them. Of course, the dangerous extremism in Platner isn’t just skin deep.

You knew I’d get to Russia and its increasingly faltering invasion of Ukraine, right? Our Andrew Stuttaford just got back from Ukraine; our Mark Wright reported from there at the end of last year, too, but he’s busy with the United States Marine Corps right now. Our Gregory Slayton is over there so frequently, I think he’s buying a condo.

And I don’t want to toot my own horn too much, but I don’t see a lot of other publications that feature correspondents putting on plate carriers and helmets and heading out to the Polish-Belarusian border, or offering firsthand accounts of Patriot missiles intercepting Russian missiles over Kyiv, or chatting with unnervingly polite Islamist fighters in Damascus, Syria, or trying to keep their feet out of the extremely holy but also extremely polluted Ganges in Varanasi, India.

There are very few publications where a reporter like me can say, “Hey, I’m going off to a far-off corner of the world that’s been in the news, I don’t know exactly what I’m going to find and write about, but I think it will be interesting,” and the editors just say, “Sure, have fun, try not to get shot,” and cover the costs of the bulletproof vest. Like I said, this is a unique and special news and opinion journal, one that is most worthy of your support.

Look, nobody’s asking you to agree with every comma of every piece we publish. That’s not the deal. The deal is that when the world gets dangerous — and the world has a remarkable, unrelenting gift for getting dangerous — you want reporters, thinkers, and analysts who have been paying attention. Not the kinds of pundits who will erroneously assert, “Gaza and the West Bank are ‘connected only by a bridge that Israel limits traffic on,’” unlike some other publications we could mention.

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The threats facing the United States right now — a revanchist Russia, a rising and increasingly aggressive China, a Middle East that keeps finding new ways to explode, a nuclear calculus that grows more complicated by the year — are not topics that reward shallow engagement. They reward the kind of sustained, rigorous, historically informed analysis that National Review has been providing since before most of today’s TikTok stars were born. (Hell, NR did it for two decades before I was born, and I sound like a bowl of Rice Krispies when I get out of bed in the morning to write this newsletter.) You can get hot takes anywhere; they’re the intellectual equivalent of stale Doritos. What you can’t always find is the combination of moral clarity and analytical seriousness that this magazine, at its best, delivers. That’s worth something. It might even be worth a donation or subscription.

Help us out now, and those who give $250 or more will receive a copy of Rick Brookhiser’s new biography of Lafayette (to ship when it publishes on June 30), the French gentleman and hero of two revolutions who helped deliver us from British rule. You’ve heard Lafayette’s hip-hop; now, meet the real man.

And with all that said . . . on to the day’s news.

Twelve Years After Annexation, Some Russians Don’t Want to Stay in Crimea

This newsletter, way back in March 2024, told you about how the Crimean peninsula — and access to it — may be the fulcrum of the war, and concluded, “Get enough long-range missiles in the hands of the Ukrainians, and they can take enough shots to destroy the Crimean Bridge (also called Kerch Strait Bridge or Kerch Bridge). Destroy the bridge, and the Russian forces in the south lose their supply lines. If Russian forces in the south lose their supply lines, many will likely surrender.”

Life in Russian-occupied Crimea is getting increasingly hellacious for the Russian forces and Russians who chose to live there and the handful of spectacularly naïve tourists who chose to vacation there this summer. This morning, the Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov reports, “Close to a thousand vehicles are waiting at the Kerch bridge to leave Crimea these days, and just over 200 are waiting on the Russian side to enter. As long as the bridge is mostly used for Russian tourists and settlers to escape what has now become an active war zone, it likely won’t be attacked by Ukraine.” (And you thought your beach traffic was bad.)

As The Economist reports:

Crimea has been under constant attack for months: military units, railway stations and power plants are being hit, and sometimes residential buildings as well. The resort town of Yalta is an exception: it is sheltered by lush mountains and has no military targets. There, children jump from piers into the sea and there is hardly an empty sun-lounger on the beach. But the rest of Crimea has become a war zone.

On the night of June 20th Ukrainian drones hit power lines, blew up an oil terminal in Kerch and damaged a ferry transporting cargo, one of several recent hits on ferries. Ferry crossings have now been shut down, severing one of the peninsula’s main arteries of supply. Lorries can now get in only via a highway through the Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. But the land corridor is increasingly vulnerable to Ukrainian drones, as burned-out vehicles along the road testify. Last week Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s defense minister, said Crimea could “in effect become an island”.

Blackouts on the peninsula are increasingly frequent. On June 21st Crimea’s governor announced the most drastic step yet: a temporary halt to fuel sales at all petrol stations. (Sevastopol, which is administratively separate, announced a ban for June 22nd and 23rd, and may extend it.)

As of this writing, the ban on civilian purchases of fuel is still in effect. According to the Financial Times, Crimea’s largest cities were left without power on Wednesday.

The commander of Ukraine’s military drone branch, Robert Brovdi, has urged Ukrainians in the occupied territories to “stay well away from military installations and anything flammable.”

Congress Rolls Out the Welcome Mat for a Taiwanese Official

There’s not a lot to praise about Nancy Pelosi, but there are a handful of things, and one of them is that she is an outspoken supporter of Taiwan, often in the face of furious responses from the People’s Republic of China. As the Associated Press reports:

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday pledged firm support for the self-governed island of Taiwan as they welcomed Han Kuo-yu, president of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, to Washington, at a time the Trump administration is reviewing a $14 billion arms sales package to Taiwan, months after it got preliminary congressional approval.

More than 30 House representatives, both Democratic and Republican, streamed into the reception at the Longworth House Office Building to show their support, including Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, D.-California; Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican and former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; and Ted Lieu, a California Democrat who serves as the vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus.

“I love Taiwan,” declared McCaul, as he welcomed Han. “It’s very important to me to say that the United States supports you, Mr. Speaker.”

“The support for Taiwan is bipartisan and bicameral — both houses, both parties,” Pelosi said. “It’s about peace. It’s also about commerce in terms of keeping the ships able to travel here.”

Congress approved that $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan back in January. Since then, the Trump administration has been reviewing that $14 billion arms sales package; in May, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said, “Right now we’re doing a pause in order to make sure we have the munitions we need for Epic Fury — which we have plenty.” Earlier this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted to Congress the sale was “under review,” but not “paused.”

As of the end of April, the backlog in U.S. arms sales to Taiwan — where they have paid, but we have not yet delivered — was $29.72 billion.

You can’t argue that Taiwan needs to spend more on defense, as Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby does, and then drag your feet on delivering them the weapons.

Meanwhile, over in Iran . . .

Yesterday on Truth Social, President Trump insisted, “No money has been given to Iran, or released from their money to them, by the U.S.!”

Eh, that’s technically true, but misleading. On Monday, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it was changing its sanctions to allow Iran to openly sell its oil on the global market for the first time since 2018, for at least the next 60 days. By allowing Iran’s oil sales to be conducted in dollars, it makes the exchange of oil for money go a lot faster, easier, and smoother.

This is the most sweeping rollback of restrictions on the sale of Iranian oil since the 1979 Revolution. “The license could unlock a floating inventory of around 67 million barrels of Iranian crude stranded in the Gulf, handing Iran a potential financial windfall of $8 billion to $9 billion according to Miad Maleki, a former Treasury sanctions official and now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank.”

So, if the U.S. changes the rules to make it easier for the Iranians to make $8 billion or so . . . eh, we kind of are giving them money, now, aren’t we?

ADDENDUM: Our Vahaken Mouradian on Jill Biden’s new memoir: “The book is a war of attrition against the senses. Surrender; negotiate an international treaty against enriching weapons-grade tedium.”