Today has been a big day for ukraine and if you haven't gotten caught up with everything that's going on between ukraine and russia, this will catch you up with. What's been going on over the last four days the weekend and the first couple days of this week. So the united states has had numerous companies today announce that they were going to shut down their operations in ukraine. This is on top of the many other companies that have already announced that they were going to stop doing business in ukraine.

Those companies that had already announced are companies like apple burberry, ea, hermes, h, m, ikea nike under armour ford and many more. But today we got a lot of updates on this. We heard that uh porsche and a ferrari are and lamborghini are potentially or restricting their activities in russia. We also heard that mcdonald's is shutting down all of its stores in russia and it's keeping all of its employees on payroll.

It is continuing to uh pay its employees while uh they shut down all of their mcdonald's stores. As soon as mcdonald's pulled out, starbucks pulled out coca-cola pulled out as soon as coca-cola pulled out, pepsi came out and said: we're gon na remove and stop spending money on uh any of our ads in in russia. We're gon na stop whatever and pepsi. Basically, any business in in russia and pepsi went as far as saying they have 20 000 associates in russia and they're going to work to continue to support their livelihoods while they pull out of russia, so massive shutouts here, the u.s has also warned about potentially shutting Out chinese semiconductor manufacturers for any companies that violate russian sanctions in response to this putin immediately came out and signed a decree.

Now we still don't know all of the details of what's going to be in this, but apparently putin gave his ministers two days to determine exactly what kind of commodities they will now ban from being exported to uh, potentially the united states and other countries, so biden's Cabinet has two days for a list of commodities and specifically which countries are going to be subject to that ban. He did sign this decree and this decree would ban these commodities uh exports all the way through december 31st. Now this could be a problem because 40 percent of the world's of certain parts of the world's corn, wheat and metal markets come from russia. Nickel, for example, has three exton price: palladium skyrocketing aluminum skyrocketing wheat, soybeans, all important commodities that come out of ukraine and uh.

The russia region collectively uh, of course, putin's decree on uh on uh coming out of russia, won't uh affect so much so the things coming out of ukraine but you've got a war going on there and you've got factories shutting down in ukraine, and you wonder how Many of the wheat fields are going to survive unscathed when it comes time for wheat harvest in august. We just don't know that yet so you've got this change coming up within the next two days that was signed today, and so we'll have a big announcement on those items in the next two days and that could lead to even more of a move on some Of these commodity prices, we've also heard from the director of national intelligence that uh there are likely, somewhere between 2 000 to 4 000 russian soldiers who have died. At this point, ukraine says that they have killed 11 000 troops and russia says they've killed that only 500 russian troops have died, so the truth is probably somewhere in the middle of this massive range here. Russia is apparently also not retrieving the bodies of russian soldiers who have been killed, uh, which is very unnormal or abnormal moscow, according to the director of national intelligence, has severely underestimated the resistance that they would face in ukraine.

There are stories that military individuals from ukraine were told that they were just going to i'm sorry from russia. We're told that they were going to train at the border of ukraine and train with belarus and then all of a sudden they found that they were being told, hey, guess what you're part of the front line you're going in to invade ukraine now, but don't worry You're just liberating the ukrainian people from nazis and when they got there, they obviously were met by ukrainians, who do not want to be liberated. Of course, under the incredible leadership and guidance of zelinski. There have been a lot of attempts to create safe harbor corridors, which the red cross is trying to set up and maintain and ensure that ceasefires are respected on both the ukrainian and russian side.

This is very difficult to do, because all it does is take one random sniper shot from one person or somebody accidentally discharging a firearm, or somebody purposely discharging a firearm to violate potentially the ceasefire on both sides. And then these evacuation corridors fail now the evacuation corridor. So far coming under fire by zielinski, because zielinski's saying hey russia's trying to set up evacuation corridors from ukraine to russia, but people don't want to go to russia, and this is leading to arguments that maybe these corridors are just being set up for russian propaganda that Russia's setting up the corridors to say, look, you know so they can put on on their russian televisions. Hey look, we are letting people from ukraine come to the great country of mother, russia and we are trying to rescue them from the nazis.

Uh and the russian media is, is very state sanitized in russia. It's worth noting that i want to say three of the largest tv yeah. It is three of the largest tv companies or stations in russia are either wholly owned by the state or the state has a majority ownership of like 50.5 percent in those. So, in other words, they have all decision making power, which is crazy.

The cia cia director, our cia director, is now warning that the next few weeks will be quote ugly, and this is due to intensive intelligence that they have which they're sharing with ukraine. It's also worth noting that there's a belief that a ceasefire that starts tomorrow at 11 a.m, moscow time so that's in about 12 hours. Now it could actually last it's probably in about nine hours now at this point, uh that this this uh corridor, that uh and ceasefire that russia now sets up could just be used as an opportunity for russia to end up pushing some more of their troops forward. Peacefully to eventually encircle keef and uh they're pushing a lot of troops from the east to circle kiev and to take control of the capital, and it's possible that we could see more aggressive attacks on the capital as russia essentially lashes out so far.

We have a lot of reports, including one in the financial times this morning. That says russia so far has still not used a real shock and awe strategy of fighting in uh ukraine and that when they do, there could be a lot more loss of life. The new york times had a cover photo yesterday of individuals actually trying to flee from outside of kiev across a bridge to get into keeve, because kiev is still ukrainian controlled and it's actually safer than some of the areas right. Around akiv and a family made a run for it and they ended up getting hit by a russian border and and died.

It was absolutely terrible. Uh to in these. These are civilians just trying to flee for safety. As a mother and her two children uh.

They look like older children that doesn't change the fact that they were still their children, it's absolutely terrible. So in just kharkiv, for example, we've had 27 civilians killed in the last 24 hours. The un estimates that over 400 civilians in ukraine have been killed at this point, zelensky vows to stay in ukraine to win a patriotic war, and he says that he doesn't want to lose what's ours, however, he has made a large sort of u-turn or undertaking a Large u-turn and that the uh well, that ukraine essentially is now no longer insisting on nato membership and there's a belief that maybe this would lead to some sort of pullback by russia, but russia really is calling for still. Despite the third negotiation attempt now, russia is still pushing for a full demilitarization of ukraine.

It's not even clear if ukraine would be willing to to so far. They've said no, but even if we don't even know if this would be enough for russia, if ukraine just said hey, take donbass, let's say the eastern region of ukraine: let's use that as a buffer zone. We don't even know if that would be good enough at the moment for for russia, and so putin is really going all in at this point now. We do also just have an update coming through that uh paypal, it looks like, is potentially suspending services now in russia as well.

So these updates are just now coming in. This follows again a whole host of cancellations of services in russia. We also know that credit card companies like sorry american, express, mastercard and visa, have suspended services for card users outside of russia. Now the problem with that is, if you're, russian and you're like i'm getting out of russia, because i don't like russia anymore and all your money is in russian bank accounts.

Now you go, you use your credit card outside of russia. It doesn't work so big problem. We already know apple pay and google pay have been having issues, people get stuck in the subways because they can't use this mcdonald's. As we've mentioned, closing all 850 stores we'll see again how uh putin's decree goes.

The european commission today mentions that they plan to cut the eu dependency on russian natural gas by two-thirds quote well before 2030, hopefully so uh. Of course, we do know that the russian military still outnumbers and out guns ukrainians. We do believe that russia could go dark and ultimately, shell ukrainian cities, much more so far since the invasions began. They've launched 600 missiles against ukraine with 100 more fired just over this weekend and 82.

Despite all this, eighty-two percent of ukrainians believe that they can ultimately drive russians out now, uh mitch mcconnell mentions that 14 billion dollars in aid for ukraine is likely to be approved very soon. We also know that amazon has eliminated the opportunity for anyone in belarus or russia or any company in russia or belarus to open up any form of aws contract. Now the universal music group has suspended its work in uh. You in russia rather and ge is also quitting russia, with the exception of essential medical equipment.

Bumble is removing its app from the russian uh versions of the apple app store and the google play stores. The energy secretary today mentioned that this, our gas prices going up are because of putin and because of putin's war, that it has nothing to do with biden or biden's policies that it all has to do with putin and putin's war. We do know that last week we saw footage of the individual family folks from or or just ukrainians in their families, defending a uh ukrainian nuclear facility that operates six reactors six out of the 15 nuclear reactors in ukraine. This nuclear facility, now only has one of its six reactors running at 60 capacity and russians have taken control of this.

Despite that initial ukrainian resistance, this has led to a lot of fear that russia is basically trying to wave the nuclear nuclear saber so to speak and saber rattle nuclear threats without actually saber-rattling nuclear threats by essentially taking over these nuclear power plants. We know that uh, the only men who are able to leave are either men who are somehow bribing guards who are between 16 or sorry between 18 and 60 years old, they're, they're all subject to cons conscription in ukraine, which means they're obligated to to serve their Country in the military for defense and uh, the only individuals, the only men who are able to leave are those who either have three children or those who have been able to basically bribe their way through the border. We know that uh, facebook, twitter and youtube have continued to remove their services, and a lot of folks are in russia, and a lot of folks are now calling for either putin to find a way to essentially retire in in a peaceful way, maybe throw them on An island like napoleon bonaparte, there have been some references to this. There.

Uh is uh even the potential suggestion that if this war continues to fail for russia, which so far, it is that there could end up being a coup d'etat which is a military overthrow of the government in russia, especially depending on how terrible the economy potentially collapses. Estimates now that you could see inflation of upwards of 40 percent in russia. We know the russian rupal is now uh sitting at about 120 rupal per single dollar, putting it well below a value of one penny per rupal. Lindsey graham argued this weekend that vladimir putin should be quote taken out, and this is really him saying out loud what a lot of people have been saying.

We know that there is a lot of censorship uh by russia of twitter and facebook, making it harder for potentially the other side of the information argument to actually make it over to russia. We know that elon musk has been elon. Musk has been asked to censor russia today on starlink satellites, that is, people using starlink satellite internet would potentially be censored from being able to see russian media like russia. Today, russia, today u.s by the way since there's a u.s version, actually shut down in the u.s and all of their employees, were fired in the u.s.

It's the u.s version of that russian state-run media, but uh elon musk refused to censor anyone. He believes that free speech stands above anything and uh will not censor anyone, including russia. Today, on the starlink network, we know that fertilizer is having substantial issues not only due to russia purposefully halting fertilizer exports purposefully, jacking up costs of food around the world. This is just russia giving a middle finger to the rest of the world, but then you also have delivery issues right.

You've got to remember that that fedex and ups aren't able to function. There you've got uh. The new journalist suspension the independent journalist suspension in russia, which is another issue, they've passed a law that essentially creates a criminal code for any independent reporter in russia who potentially spreads whatever they deem to be fake news. And if you spread in their mind fake news in russia about the russian military, you would be subject to a 15-year sentence for spreading this potential fake news.

You have uh this, this real fear now as well that uh. We know that ukraine does not want to be occupied. The ukrainian insurgency is likely to survive, but there's this fear that what if russia starts potentially going down the direction of losing and if russia starts losing there is that fear - and we've mentioned this a couple times in this video that they could really ramp up. The aerial bombardments in ukraine as just sort of a actually implementing shock and awe and lashing out a lot of talk about also marupo and the disasters of the safe passage corridors here talked about the other safe passage corridors earlier, as well as well as the ones Coming forward, we know that in russia and ukraine, restaurants are running out of meat and fish uh and there's even talk about a straight-up censorship between well - and we know this, but between or so much censorship happening in russia that family members in ukraine who call their Family back in russia, there are reports of this.

So obviously it's difficult to confirm this, but there are many reports of this that family members in ukraine are calling their family in russia or people. They know in russia and describing the atrocities of what's happening in ukraine, and the folks in in russia are responding by saying, no, that that can't be true. We see it here on tv. This is just a a mission to rescue and liberate the ukrainians from the nazis and that there is no uh.

You know attack on civilians when, on the flip side, obviously here - and you could see this on my twitter profile - you can go through my twitter profile. Like history, not that i like it, but it's so you can see it and you could see just the absolute atrocities of cluster bombs or cluster munitions and and bombs hitting residential areas. Air strikes against apartment buildings. It's absolutely terrible, really really terrible, what's happening in ukraine.

So this catches us up a little bit. I'd say the biggest next catalysts we have here for the russia, ukraine crisis are determining what those commodities are going to be that are going to be on that ban list from putin's decree and then also what ultimately ends up happening with uh after this potential ceasefire. Tomorrow, which we'll know about probably tonight and uh, and then we'll we'll see what happens in the coming days, the cia and our intelligence officers here in the united states, not too optimistic instead saying the next few weeks will continue to be very ugly for ukraine. Well, folks, there you have it.

Thank you so much for watching this update on ukraine and i'll, see you next one bye.