China of all country is certainly the country that may have the most influence on Russia. But I doubt that it will lead to anything as it refuse to take a hard stance against Russia. They'll try to 'both side' things which will likely result in Russia still proposing unfare ceasefire condition for Ukraine which they will reject.

China, please prove me wrong and make russia end this madness.

US and allies are releasing 60 million barrels of oil to lower gas prices while we put the squeeze on Russia.

Potentially wipe out an entire country because of the government does not obey Moscow.

Ukrainian think tank says it has acquired the personal data of 120,000 Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

Link: https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7785/Artykul/2911420,Personal-data-of-Russian-troops-fighting-in-Ukraine-leaked-online-report

Look like you can see the data here: https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2022/03/1/7327081/

Also there seems to be some confusion about the EU fighter jets that were supposed to arrive in Ukraine on Sunday, perhaps they won't be arriving?

Link: https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2022/03/01/remember-those-viral-tweets-saying-eu-fighter-jets-will-be-in-ukraine-within-the-hour-on-sunday-yeah-there-will-be-no-fighter-jets/

I fear that this situation keeps getting out of control for Ukraine and that they slip somehow. I so much hope I'm wrong, but I have a terrible feeling.

Meanwhile there is no sanity left in Putin anymore. He will go down, even if he 'wins' this war. He destroyed his own country as well, not just Ukraine. I believe that there will be new leaders that push him out eventually. It might take some time, perhaps, but sooner or later he will be gone.

I hope Selensky survives this conflict. He is such an amazing leader and a real hero.

BREAKING: European Parliament recommends giving Ukraine EU candidate status.

I hate seeing news like this. Ukraine needs REAL support NOW! Provide it or SHUT THE F UP! Take it into EU and NATO and HATO and whatever the f else there is and end this war NOW! Nope, the common people have to do it, as always, while politicians keep farting into their seats.

It was reported a few days back that Russia was spending $20B a day for the war. This was when it was reported that only 1/3 of soldier massed at frontier had entered Ukraine we could bet it's way higher now.
But let say it still $20 B/Day. After 5 days it's $100B. This does not account capital loss due to Ruble crashes, revenue loss due to reduced exportation, frozen assets and others.
Factor in all of this and the real cost comes in the $T figure for sure.
You would think that with so many obvious world problems right now there would be a better way to spend such money, one where Russia would even be cheered for.

With $100B you could create a 75GW solar farm, which is about the same as the installed capacity of Mexico. Which would save 2 362 Mt of Co2 over the farm lifetime (about 25 years).
The equivalent of removing nearly 420M car from the roads.
With electricity sold at a low 0.1$/kwh the project could break even in 6 or 7 years (more like 10 years if factoring in maintenance cost and initial land purchase) and generate enormous profits afterwards.

With a little more than $100B you could finance 1 year of free health care for all russians.

With $100B you could remove 20Mts of plastic from the ocean (probably way more than this as such an investment will dramatically reduce the cost per kilo which is about 5$ as of now)

$100B represent about 30% of the cost of permanently solving world hunger or directly providing food securities to the world for many years (estimate vary greatly for this one).

Instead Russia decided to use $100B to :
Kill (so far) 644 Ukranians
Loose 5000+ of their relatives
Loose $T+ worth of revenue, assets and valuation.
Unify the western world (and to some extent nearly all of the world) against themselves.

This can only be the result of a mad mind drunk on power.
I truly hope this is the last surge of energy from a dying regime.

In Russia's case, they would create a 2GW solar farm, the rest of the funds would go to oligarchs' nuclear powered yachts and apartments in Paris center and such.

Formula 1 have just annouced that Russian driver Nikita Mazepin is permitted to complete in this year’s championship albeit not under the Russian flag (so if he gets on the podium in any race it will be under to FIA flag). I can understand them drawing a distinction between a Russian person and Russian national teams here - and this might be reflected in other sports like tennis

Canada has become the first Western nation to ban imports of Russian oil & gas.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60564781

This is the big move in terms of sanctions that would deal major damage to the Russia economy. However, its hard to implement given how reliant Europe is in Russia’s gas. I’d seen somewhere that Algeria and the US were trying to step in the make up some of the supply shortage, but clearly this sanction won’t be implemented fully unless/until an alternative source can be found as it would cause oil prices to sky-rocket.
Hoping something can be done in the short-term.