zelenskyy has now posted a picture on his telegram account of him officially applying for eu membership. so there were two threads in the initial opposition, you know, that putin had said. one was nato, of course, the military defense force, military alliance, but the other was the european union that offended so much his belief that ukraine belonged to russia. and this is very much, you know, in the face of what russia what putin is doing, is it not? reporter: yeah, that s exactly right, and i think one moment, one point of caution and richard has made this point earlier today and it was a very good one. we should not forget what looks like a success or win, if you like for the west is a loss for president putin, and the real danger could be that president putin s back is against the wall, clearly militarily, and
putin sending a low level cultural delegation, so there is widespread skepticism of any concrete discussions to end the conflict. global condemnation of russia is spreading with historically neutral switzerland joining europe s anti-russian sanctions and israel not sending weapons to ukraine, but israel at least joining a u.n. resolution, a general assembly resolution condemning ukraine. the u.n. general assembly is voting in a rare emergency session on a resolution condemning russia, despite objections from moscow. russia is suffering severe financial consequences from president putin s actions with their stock market shut down for the rest of the week, the russian ruble crashing to an all time low, interest rates in russia skyrocketing to 20% and new u.s. sanctions on russia s central bank ramped up again today. all the financial pressure and military setbacks have put the global spotlight on putin as the world wonders what will he do in
petersburg, these main cities are interconnected with europe in the west in a profoundly different way, and the fundamental question is it going to be possible for russia to survive this economic collapse, if you like, this economic freezing out without the middle classes of russia frankly revolting. now, on the other hand, you mentioned that meeting between president putin and his finance ministers and his central bank. what s stunning about that meeting is once again, he is sitting on a long table, a huge distance away from them, and that happened again when he was sitting with his defense minister and announcing that change in nuclear posture. again, a huge distance away from them, so here is the question, there is no question that the russian society is shaking right now. is president putin noticing? and keir, i just want to point out something else because
giving up, others coming on foot. i had a chance to talk to a group of teenagers in the city of lviv, they had recently fled kyiv. without home, this is very bad. putin will stop this. this is very bad. this is very difficult. this is very bad. my friend in lviv, and i don t know what to do next. reporter: this group of teenagers was spending the day walking around the city looking for a place to help. they wanted to help the refugees, they said there was an overflow of volunteers and so they found a nearby place where they were able to make molotov cocktails and i was struck by this group of teenage girls and their enthusiasm about making weapons of war, and them telling me how easy it was to make molotov cocktails and they hoped these weapons would head to the