all involved in this process, he's now asking for guarantees that the sanctions have been put on russia not going to affect russia's trade and relations with iran. it's a real spanner in the works at the 11th hour negotiations. ah, this is just a, let's get around now. the top story, ukrainian president, one of them is lensky is urging his people to continue the fight as russia invasion of ukraine continues. he's pleaded with the west for more aid and is pushing for a no fly zone. not being in the road in the us. we will not give our country to the invaders, ukrainian people and every occupied place. go on attacking a counter attack. you have to struggle, you have to fight like an kershawn for dancing. you have to go out and chased them out. clear this evil from our land. russian president vladimir putin, his warning,

any country to try to impose a no fly zone over ukraine would be a participant in a military conflict with demons. zaleski has pressed us president joe biden for more support during a phone call. gabriel alexander, as more from washington the 2 leaders talked about security for ukraine and continued security support on behalf of new us to, to ukraine. i also talked about sanctions to continuing ramping up of sanctions by an, apparently towards the sky. you said this would continue to go on and continue to be a point of that. the white house would continue to focus on what was not discussed or at least what was not mentioned in the read out from the white house or 2 things . any sort of calls for biden, talking about transferring of military aircraft to ukraine. that's something that's been talked about a bit, but there was no discussion of that between the 2 leaders according to the read out

and also the no fly zone. visa, mastercard, say they are suspending all operations in russia effective immediately. it means transactions for cons issued within russia won't work outside the country. credit cards issued elsewhere will no longer work in russia. if the companies are the latest to isolate moscow from the international community, following the invasion of ukraine, rushes resumed, it's offensive on the strategic course. it's a matter you poll. it comes after temporary humanitarian sci fi failed with both sides accusing the other a violate to the truce. more than 1300000 people have fled ukraine since rushes invasion began. the un as recorded $351.00 civilian deaths with more than $700.00 wounded, but it's thought the real fight is much higher. those headlines counting the cost is next. a mass pro democracy movement violent crackdowns assassinations and you

imposed sanctions. all tactics in the struggle that ensued from the 2020 bella roost him presidential elections. that shook the country's self proclaimed dictators seat of power. and now new tactics, migrants people empower, investigates, the humanitarian disaster unraveling on europe's borders and asks what's next. and the battle for bella. bruce on a jazz eda. ah, [000:00:00;00] i i hello, i am sammy's a band. this is counting the cost and al jazeera go look at the world of business and economics this week. massive western sanctions, or shopping russia hours of the international financial system can rely on its last

oil and gas reserves. route china step in to help me more than a quarter of the worlds we thank schools come from russia and ukraine. grain prices of shot up raising concern among importers around the world. will the conflict undermine globally food security? the european union expands sanctions on me and martin to the center and oil and gas company. it's a lucrative source of income for the military. well, this put pressure on the generals behind last year's crew currency, plunging to rec, hold lows. the stock market closed for days and interest rates at 20 percent. russia has been reeling under the impact of western sanctions that exclude solve its banks from the swift payment system and by the central bank from accessing it's huge dollar reserves. from oil giant eggs on mobile to tack tight an apple

international companies have rushed to exit. russia, leaving moscow financially and diplomatically isolated, bernard smith reports nervous about whether debit and credit cards might stop working a sanctioned bite. some russians a stocking upon cash. soon they'll begin to feel the financial pain of their president's decision to invade ukraine with interest rates more than doubled 20 percent. and the rubel plunging 30 percent against the dollar. knowing that we are planning to buy a flat. so for us, it is very important and we were hoping to have a certain interest rate. now it will be totally different lubricants. of course i am worried anyway, 1st of all, the situation with the doll is unclear. and what about foot prices? we are in a dead and situation. there is no way out for people. russians have been promised that central bank reserves of more than $630000000000.00 will help cushing the economy from sanctions. but much of this money is in foreign banks. sanctions will

make it very difficult to get any of it back to moscow. one russian economist told al jazeera, it's a completely unprecedented situation for the central bank. happily with yorker rosen and ellen are, is likely to be unusable as well. so this is something where nobody really can imagine what's going on. the central bank says, external conditions for the russian economy have drastically changed in a meeting about sanctions with government ministers vladimir putin described the western community as an empire of lies. russia's economy is also taking it from western firms, running for the exit b p. the biggest foreign investor here is abandoning stake in oil firm rosin, f. u. p. s. and fedex have stopped shipping services. half the passenger jet used here are least, and those contracts are being canceled, rushes, political, economic, and physical isolation from the rest of the world is rapidly gathering pace.

bernard smith, al jazeera moscow, russia says, is prepared for all kinds of sanctions, and it does have some escape hatches centered around. gee, and china. the country's biggest erna, the oil and gas industry, has been spared. most of europe relies on russia for its energy needs. another major consumer is it southern labor, china, moscow, and beijing share warm ties. and russia couldn't move towards chinese financial initiatives set up to rival west. they include greater use of the chinese currency and the cross border into bank payment system. russia is also leaning on its significant gold reserves, and another work around could be great. the use of crypto currency. now, from the city of groaning and in the netherlands, i'm joined by francesca. do men live? francesco is deputy head of department of associate professor of international relations at the university of groaning and good to have you with us. so

interestingly, the west have has not put sanctions so far on russian, oil and gas. how serious all the sanctions without that component, sanctions, without complaining as been unprecedented. i'm president as a very serious 1. 1 week ago it was likely before the petition started, very few would have considered that imposing sanctions on the reserves of central banquet actually cedars option. so many people who say, listen until you touch the energy in the ga sector. they're, they're all in gus. a sector then very likely the impact is not going to be feasible, but with the amount of relevance of the reserves from the bank and the number of bang should have been also put under scrutiny. and because these are cumulative effects, the number of people that have been targeted by the sanctions for the phase of

assets from the united states. electric in european union combined the all the efforts of the international community to try to close the loopholes for possible sanctions of asian. then the impact is nevertheless very to see this or what's happening now is that possibly the sanctions from the central bank are going way beyond what the energy sector could have done. there's also been the swift band on russian banks. some analysts have said that when a country looking back at other examples, when the country has had a swift band put in place, it can lose up to 30 percent of its foreign trade. is that sort of prediction or. busy number realistic, when it comes to a country as big as russia, if these it is realistic, but they wouldn't be only because of the sleeved, there are some important thing to clarify. suite is only a messaging system. so it does not allow for payments. he makes payments fast, that it makes payments, and the communication, no bank to bank, much cheaper or better secure and fast,

but it doesn't make the payment itself. what's going on now? it is on this week, which is a short term cost and disruption of the system. there is also a number of listing of all the bank, the fees of payments from all of the banks. that is what makes the sanctions much more tangible. and indeed, we can, we're lucky to do something that goes beyond 30 percent. if this continues in this way, the question is how the young certainly didn't tell us some pricing number. yes, because again, this is community effect. this wouldn't be on this week. it would be, and the reserves for the central bank happens with the reserves being frozen, is that the rubel lose his value. and if the ruble loses value, then anything the rush was importing becomes extremely more expensive. and of course they've been and trickle down effect and community effect of all these measures all together. all right, so a follow up quick follow on that because you mentioned the central bank sanctions, are they going to be able to manage the ruble? we've already seen it take

a plunge after the 1st day of the invasion of ukraine. and this is something that also, i think, and many of us thought that was not going to be done precisely because of the magnitude. now diesel is also something that russia and the central bank of rush i had been preparing for. so for instance, the exposure to the dollar went down from 40 percent to 50 percent in only a few years. which means that these was something that they were preparing for as much as the increase in the reliance on the so the chinese currency that is very, very important as well. what, what we, we've seen also is a number of measure something that we're not predicted, for instance, since the energy market is still open for trade. what russia has done has asked or 4th company is heavy revenues from the sale of energy to put basically to invest those resources in bio who bought substantially. so the,

asking the private sector to substitute for the role of the central bank. all right, let's look on the other hand, the other side of this question. russia has been obviously preparing for this. it's reduced its reliance over the years on foreign debt. it's increased its domestic production of food. you know, to what extent can it at least manage the situation because of the measures it has taken in the short term that measures that the been taken. and they seem to be, you know, trying to, to, to cope with the emergency and the seed is nist of the impact of sanctions. and potentially, we can also say that in our country can be, can survive independently from the rest the case. and here is not korea, they can deal with very little foreign trade, but at the same time, the cost is very high. so it's not too much to know where the russia we survive russia, it's a large country with lots of, as you mentioned,

also internal resources is what costs will they want to survive under these conditions? and what kind of, you know, told they were taking the medium in the long term. and that is very, very interesting to know. mean russia, for as much as we want to think that we can create what knowledge is being called fortress, russia, and economy. if you want to grow at the stage in history is always very interdependent from others. so imagining russia surviving these lay level without being interconnected with the rest of the world is utopia or i talking of, i'm glad you mentioned with the rest of the world because that prompts us talk about china. to what extent can china make up for the loss of western markets? to one extent can some of its systems, its currency payment systems, may comp for the loss of swift and so on. this is also one of the questions that we had and we are discussing. now,

russia is as been increasing its size with china. again, as i've already mentioned, that reserves that went up to 12 percent from 0 via actually in 2017, only in 2021. the trade between russia in china increased up until 15150000000000. so russia count for china accounts for an important part of russia trade. and the question is whether china is willing to sacrifice everything else. because china is more important to russia than the other way around. russia accounts only 435 percent or chinese trade. so now with the situation that were being seen, any support from chinese, from the chinese state or chinese companies might be seen very negative from the rest of the world, especially from the u. s. the european union in the united kingdom. if we see also the dynamics, i was going, some of the chinese companies have already discontinued their positions, russia because they don't want to incur into

a war. they have become within became to be known as secondary sanctions from the united states. so long story short, it is possible that china can provide some support. busy to rushing the stage, but it, the needs would be a very risky move from, from china as a state, but also from each individual company that engage with the, with rush at the moment. all right, thanks so much for your analysis. been great talking to francesca. thank you very much for me on the show. ah, the invasion of ukraine is helping push weight prices to their highest levels in more than a decade. russia and ukraine together produce more than a quarter of the wolves. we thank sports more than half of the food stuffs used by the u. n's world food program comes from ukraine. priyanka uptake explains this for todd black, so if known in ukraine as she knows them, it's made the country,

the bread basket of europe. $32000000.00 hectares of plant is cultivated every year and area larger than italy. foodstuffs from cone and sunflower. oil to wheat are shipped from ukraine and russia around the worlds. most of those exports are transported through the black sea. but the ports are now closed and beat prices have jumped to a 14 year high grace. notice we are cornered for the world. illnesses are asleep as for and they're, they're really especially goes to a lot of lower and middle eastern countries around the world. and especially in the middle east, half of you, queen, suite export happened going to the middle east and north africa. and government from the region could struggle to provide subsidized spread to their people. egypt, the was biggest in puerto wheat, were lies in russia and ukraine for 85 percent of its imports. war 2 in yemen,

gets about 40 percent of its supplies from russia and ukraine, while lebanon counts on ukraine for most of what it needs. lebanon, storage facilities were lost in the 2020 beard would. port blast when green st. louis were destroyed. now it's rushing to find alternatives. ukrainian wheat is oh no more about what it is. the situation escalades and the wheat market is also we have enough for, for about a months worth of we are not stored in the meantime. and after that we have no reserves. so it's important that we think this direction that seriously locals are the amount, ha, subsidized, spread has been a crucial to for governments across the middle east to satisfy their people. wising food prices had previously cause riots and revolutions, and influenced the 2011 aarp spring. and now buyers from asia to

africa and the middle east are scrambling to reduce their reliance on russia and ukraine for grain priyanka for counting the cost. while joining me from london is charlie robinson. charlie is the global chief economist at renaissance capital. thanks for being with us today. charlie. so we prices have gone up since the russian invasion of ukraine. do you think they're going to go up as much as 50 percent? is some of predicting? well, it is possible because what we have now is not just the fact that there is going to be no exports through ukraine's ports in the short term. but we've also got the question about that. how do you ensure that the, the transportation of any grain coming out of russia and ukraine, given the sanctions, ah, which ships do you use given that russian ships are getting banned by so many countries? and so many large shipping companies are not going to work with russia. and so

whether it's insurance or shipping, let alone the fact that literally rise the product to get to the port during the middle of a war. all of that is, is in question right now. and i think that's why we seeing such a high spike in, in we prices. what will that mean to countries that are very vulnerable to the price of bread, particularly in parts of the middle east and africa, which are reliant to a launch degree on grain from russia and ukraine? yeah, i mean, there's a huge egypt is a huge importer of russian, ukrainian o serials. and it's not the only one north africa, north africa, the biggest part of, of russia's trading with africa and a very large chunk of that is to do with food. so and food matters, food is 40 percent of the inflation basket in, in egypt. so it really matters that where i think it's gonna show up is a fiscal cost. because the egyptians, as far as i'm aware,

haven't yet stopped the subsidy for small loaves of bread you can buy. i think 5 each family can go by 5 small loaves of bread and very, very cheap. so it becomes a fiscal cost to egypt. egypt government is going to be losing out on this. my hope is that you get a country like saudi arabia saying, well, with commodity prices up here, actually we're doing pretty well with oil exports booming in dollars. and so we could sub help out. egypt and other north african countries are with, with some support in that way. money from saudi, from high or low price is going to egypt, government, so it can help subsidize food. that's a big issue though, isn't there? i mean, if this isn't salted out, we could see countries facing inflation, cutting subsidies, potential even threat to stability. right? yeah, we looked at this actually in november because i guess we would get issues like this and, and what was interesting about it was when i looked back at the food price, you know,

there's this theory that food price inflation causes revolution. we've had it from 1789 and the french revolution with mary antoinette saying, let me cakes. and she, that was all about food prices might not be a lot of katie and yemen in egypt, though it date on a day. but when i look, we did the study on this and political regime change actually isn't triggered by food prices. what triggers political changes falling per capita g d p that increases the risk? so if people are actually worse off at the whole country is worse off. ok then then we do have more political risk for food in itself. isn't a trigger, isn't an extra trigger for political change? talk about food in general. it is interesting. wouldn't know about food in general . last year. food prices went off in 2021 by want like 28 percent. could we see that trend increase and perhaps accelerate because of the war in ukraine yet,

and it's not just about about the war. it's also about the fact that fertilizers, potash, for example, as well, that we use so much to try and increase yields. well, it did, the west sanctioned belarus, which is the, one of the world's biggest potash exporters and, and, and, and actually sanctioned the company that does that. and we could see problems also using russian fertilizers and they're big in this space as well. because natural gases is so helpful, fertilizer production and fertilized in russia's big and natural gas. so again, we've got an issue here about how people going to get the fertilizers. they need to grow more food. so this becomes a global shock to farmers as well. and they then pass that global shock on to the rest of the world. is there anyone who can step in and fill the gap, fill the void that we're talking about, whether it's to do with grain, wheat, or potash, and fertilizers, a way are gonna rely on good harvests. ah,

good health is out of canada, australia, the united states and, and to some extent western europe. ah, so we're gonna have to rely on we can have to be lucky with the weather and, and secondly, then we gotta have to make sure hope the countries like china, which went and 2020 and massively increased its stock of wheat and, and grain. this is part of the reason food process started going up in late 20 twenty's because china wanted to boost its reserves. so you have to make sure that no one's trying to place their reserves, which is probably unlikely at this price level anyway. and that we get good harvest if we get bad harvests will, then it gets beaty brady tough. so a lot of if a lot of hope and a lot of luck with, with counting on a lot of variables that we don't entirely control doing control. what about shipping now, going to talk about shipping. it's been disrupted because of the war, whether it's to ukrainian ports or russian polls because of sanctions or because of

the war itself. what impacts that going to have on the global supply chain that was already suffering because of the pandemic? like, i mean, it's easiest at this point to say is going to be ready. it makes life an awful lot tougher and slower and more complicated for the russians. more than anybody else. i'm and arguably if, if shipping is during less to russia than baps as a little bit more shipping for the rest of the world may be actually that helps on the supply chain side. but the difficulty about what, what's happening right now is this global shock, ah, hasn't been, can't be priced by the markets. there is simply too much going on at the moment for us to understand all the applications. so we could be having this conversation am on time with a lot more information at our disposal. right now there's, there's just a vast amount of uncertainty. there isn't the we can agree on that. thanks so much . charlie's been great talking to you checks the european union has added

a state owned oil and gas company to its me and mar sanctions. list. rights groups had argued that polishing me and mar, oil and gas enterprise will take away a crucial source of the military. jones, as funds revenues from natural gas may comp about 50 percent of men last foreign currency inflows. the military seas power from the elected civilian government in february 2021. or joining me now is garrath leather. garrath is a senior asia or economist at capital economics. good to have you with us. so we've got a new round of ease sanctions on me and my was prompted this latest round. yes. so i think it makes sense for the e. you to go after my and mas gas industry, i think gas exports account for about a 3rd of the total and the sanctions probably will have some impacts. i think that the, the, the issue with main martin is also for the e and u. s. if they want to, it's trying kind of clamped down on trying to improve human rights to the countries

. they don't have as much leverages mine mas, asian neighbors. so china and taiwan, they're by far the biggest source of investment, the biggest market for is exports. and so unless you get those 2 countries on board, it's unlikely that they, that the sanctions are going to have much of it impacts. i think what will probably happen is instead of selling the or the gas to up to a european company though though, so it's your donation one instead. and that brings us my so my next question is going to be, is this recognition that the sanctions imposed thus far have not had the impact the wasted hope? precisely for that point that you mention because the biggest trading partners while they're in asia, not in the west. yeah, i think so. so it makes sense when you're introducing sanctions to kind of wrap up the pressure gradually sheila introduced some thanks a lot long after the the military q year ago. that was you didn't have the desired effect. the human rights uses in the country got worse. it makes sense to, to increase the pressure on them. but unless the u. s. and a,

you were really prepared to go kind of full scale russia style sanctions in terms of cussing, any companies that dealt with mind off the u. s. financial system, for example. they're going to have limits and effects sent me on the big macroeconomy. they could have an effect, some new sam, politicians who are who a sanction but. but i think that the overall impact on the economy probably won't be that significance, which brings us to the point of the u. s. do you think the us will fall? so it, it hasn't even impose sanctions on oil and gas. right now has it? well, i think the stuff is, their attention is probably elsewhere, the given events in the ukraine and russia and, and how important that is. but i suspect that be certain, even the, you move increases pressure on the u. s. for the us to do something fallacy. so i wouldn't be surprised to see some moves from the us over the next couple of months . but as i said, so kind of attention is very much elsewhere and also about western all companies like total and chevron announcing their withdrawal. what impact might that have,

especially when it comes to technological issues? you know, i think they, they could have some impacts to these companies there. you know, they've invested funds and resources into, into the sector and they were hoping that the sanctions have been introduced. and the pressure from the west would make a difference. obviously they've, that comes to conclusion that they have no other choice. but so actually the country, again, it's likely that their oppression is in my, my will be taken over by their tyra chinese nation. all right, thanks so much gary. good. talking to you. okay, bye bye. thank you. and that's all shows it this way. but remember, you can get in touch with us via twitter. use the hash tag a j, c, c, c. when you do or drop as an a mouth can to the cost of al jazeera dot net is our address is more for you on line that al jazeera dot com slash c c. c. thank you straight to a page which has individual reports, links and in tara says for you to catch up on that's it for this edition of counting the cost on sammy's a ban from the whole team. here,

thanks for joining us. news and al jazeera is next serious dorcas days with one man leading the country through us present to alice out as last legitimacy. he needs to step how has he retained control through over a decade of war. we examined the global power games of president bashar al assad. we believe assad simply carrying out iranian orders. what keeps you awake at night? many a reason that could effect any human eyesight master of chaos. on al jazeera, i ran home to an a 2000000 stray dogs, many in a terrible state, al jazeera well for those, those help him to save him. and the remarkable jamie to rest lay on. his dog is all

the way from egypt. after harrigan, roby betted, it was ne, which takes an unexpected, very difficult to search for her grey. yeah, these are very stray dog analogies era. ah, ukraine's leader, while a demi zalinski speaks to president joe biden off the, appealing directly to us senators for more help in the war with russia. ah, milan has them secret this is added? is it a lie from the hall? so coming up terrified people in the east in ukrainian city of marty. you, paul,