all 27 eu member nations unanimously imposed sweeping restrictions against russia, or to use president biden s words, carving out a big chunk of ukraine. the big sanctions differ between the three groups, but the broad strokes are the same. all of them sanction russian banks, elite russian individuals. and the u.s. is fully sanctioning two of russia s banks, veb, and russia s military bank psb, the military bank alone handles 70% of russia s defense contracts and it s the smaller of the two banks. the u.s. is also sanctioning a handful of elite russian individuals. and cutting off u.s. financing the russian sovereign debt. in addition to the sanctions imposed by the uk and eu, germany delivered what might be the biggest economic blow
in the summer of 2016 at the republican national convention that was prepared to nominate donald trump to be the gop candidate for president, the republican party suddenly and inexplicably changed its platform on russia and ukraine. ever since russia annexed crimea in 2014 and began to support russian separatists. that summer of 2016, the republican party officially renounced support for arming ukraine in that fight against russia. one rnc delegate said it was trump himself who directed that change in the platform. it was such a weird specific thing. but it was just the beginning.
ukrainian army. the first officer killed in weeks in a conflict with pro-russian separatists that s been raging since fweent. his death,en though, his funera service today took on a heightened sense of symbolism. it was the first funeral service that they held since the russian president vladimir putin announced the incursion of ukraine. today, following the funeral service for the captain, there was a demonstration outside the russians embassy in kyiv, protesting putin s decision to sendti troops into the country. protesters held t up signs that said never surrender, donbas isr ukraine. and we choose europe, not ro russia. there s a big protest in the city of mariupol today which is the part of ukraine which putin says he s no longer recognizing as being part of ukraine. there, they flew the ukrainian
couldn t sell carpet, anything that required international currency or an international bank. what s the equivalent for russia that would hurt? i assume it s oil and gas because it s the biggest thing they sell. oil and gas would be huge, because russia is so integrated into the international financial system, they do make them a target that is easy to hit with sanctions but at the same time, they would retaliate and there would be backlash or u.s. and european business and also global markets, right? so if they rob the europeans in the gas they that he export to europe, currently 40% of gas from russia, then that would cause the price skyrocketing all over the place, right, because europe would have to find a new source, have to fix its refineries, production ability. it would affect our prices here because oil and gas go up globally?
people expected do to. diplomacy is gearing down, meetingsri cancelled. sanctions are beefing up, tell us how you see this unfolding? well, first of all, thanks for having me on the show. with regards to the official quote-unquote official recognition of independent of the donbas region thatt was fairly predictable. putin had to go back to his people with something. diplomacy was never an option. and putin does not recognize the sovereigncy of ukraine. he never has. in fact, russia since 1991 has never really psychologically embraced ukraine as a country of independence and people of their own individual agency. in regards to another thing about the word invasion, the