creating fake news about what couldn't cause a special military operation and blamed ukraine for causing the war by mistreating russians. quarters and break away re jennifer. none of them was quizzical. great as get. this definitely persuaded us that we could no longer ignore the suffering to people. and don bass, the leaders of breakaway regents turned to us from military support. that's his update. thanks. ah, they've had no peace for for decades. people of iraq country is devastated. and there's no end to the final how did it come to this group, this is reveal and unprecedented story late. he

behaved exactly like said gums, and the poison spread their own misery, misery, nor life. the great documentary series iraq destruction of the nation starts march 4th on d. w. ah, ah, another oil major cuts, ties with russia. shell follows british petroleum saying it will divest of it shares and oil and gas projects in the countries north, east and siberia. other western companies are under similar pressure. also on our show rushes ruble takes a tumble. the currency, his historic low on sanction fear, striving worries of a banking collapse and sending russians the cash machines and it was called the nuclear option of sanctions. now the u. s. and e, u r a div to block,

some russian banks from the swift messaging system. we'll look at what the move might actually mean. walk of the show, i'm so busy in berlin could have you with us. the russian invasion of ukraine continues to unfold. so does the response of western governments and even companies . oil giant shell now saying it's ending its cooperation with gas prom in key oil and gas projects. it follows b p which said it would abandon it's nearly 20 percent stake. russian oil, giant ra, snuffed resulting in a hit of up to $25000000000.00 across the west. companies are coming under increased pressure to in their relationships with russian oligarchs. or if morning guardians quarter in new york? yes. exxon mobil and other oil major facing calls to divest of its projects in russia. what kinds of pressure are these western companies under right now?

well, i mean, if we talk about an exxon, i'm steven they had already entered a joint venture. was the rosin f t. m. a couple of from a years ago, but they still have for 30 percent to mistake and oil and gas field. so i'm on the, the east, off from a russia, so clearly they are called said to and that, and then it really depends on the industry and on the corporation and how a bic, of the connections to russia are a general motors. by the way, here on monday, announced to stop exports to russia for now at the same is true for deliveries from u. p. s. for example, or federal express to the and i a to, to russia button over all, it's obviously a russia so closer to the european union. and also the tycer are a bigger than, i'm here to most corporations in the united states. okay, so far more exposure to russia from european businesses, compared to u. s. businesses. but what are we seeing from markets in the financial hub of the

world? frankly? well, i mean us, some investors clearly are nervous and jumpy at this point. but so far, lots of have been limited to the best example is last week by mid last week that the s and p 500 had last about pipe and a half percent within 3 for the trading days. and then all of a sudden we saw the biggest come back since september 2008. so since the midst of the financial crisis, and actually last week, the s and p 500 for the week even traded to the upside by point 8 percent. if you look at mondays session, we had blue chips down by more than 500 points at some point at the end of the day . and only us talks, we're down in the dow jones industrial average by a good 160 points. so you see big moves that the us investors, obviously you do not really know at this point how important this war is going to be for the us economy for us corporations. we shouldn't forget the us a is not

a country that is exposed so much to trade. it really has its strengths in the us consumers. so that's the big thing. and to talking about the u. s. consumer clearly also here in the united states, people feel the inflationary pressure of oil prices, for example, traded to the upside, but almost 5 percent here on monday in quarter in new york. thank you very much. will the prospect of western sanctions against russia are already taking a toll in the country's currency? the rubel has plunged to a record low dropping by almost a 3rd against the us dollar. russians have been scrambling to withdraw money from banks with long queues forming a cash machines in an attempt to prop up the currency. the central bank has doubled its key interest rate to an unprecedented 20 percent. export companies are meanwhile being told to sell most of their foreign reserves to drive up demand for the rouble. one of those plans sanctions is an exclusion from some russian banks

from the swift messaging system. or is run by a belgium based company and has become essential to the global economy by smoothing financial transactions. here's our works. what is swift? the acronym stands for society for world wide inter bank financial telecommunication, a global network found to process international financial transactions. it's been around since 1973. 190 countries used the standardized system, as well as banks and commodities and securities traders. last year, some 42000000 transactions were handled by swift every day. each swift member is identified by its bank identifier, court or big. the big ensures that money transfers are paid into the correct account. a big is familiar to any one with a bank card. it allows bank a in germany to carry out transactions with money. shares of precious metals with

bank b in the u. s. ever big caught is blocked. the member is shot out of swift. barring rushes, access to the swift network would sever the country completely from the international monetary flow. russian companies would no longer be able to pay for or receive foreign goods. rushes trade with the rest of the world would be suspended, but it means the trade in urgently needed goods from russia would also be interrupted . the result rising energy prices, world wide, and russia is not only a major exporter of oil and gas, but of iron and steel, to still being shut out of swift would harm russia most of all in the catalog of sanctions. it's the instrument that cuts the deepest the olympus runs a consulting firm in berlin that's focused on payment systems. leo, it's good to have you on the show. i think the question that everyone is wondering is, how serious is a cut off from swift has been called the nuclear option for

a while. well, i think that it becomes would be quite material level quite a material impact on the recipe. honey, i'm a couldn't factor quite devastating when you look back about 10 years ago when the iranian banks were cut off from swift, of that crisis. iranian will export declined by 50 percent and the running foreign trade declined with 30 percent. the potential for a very serious impact is there. in this case, energy is actually excluded from these transactions. that is, that there are, there will remain energy channels for making those payments that suggest that they might not be as strong as even those is that fair to say. so my understanding of the curved rats of, of the, of the sanctions is that energy payments are cargo for a limited period of time to allow a transition within certain economies to other sources of energy. i don't need those coverages to persist over the long term. after all,

you're correct to know that they would in fact make me make much of the impact much less severe. so i think the idea there is the cushion some of the western economies from higher energy prices in the short term as they transition over to other sources. but there's no doubt that in the long term, if you really want to thank you, had max impact, they really do need to include those energy payments as well. what does it cut off from swift? going to mean for normal russians? how are they going to experience this? so it's, it's hard to judge when i think about what it means, right? if you think about what a reduction of foreign trade would, would, would, would mean for the average russian. so it would mean a more limited importance for it's mixed the entire import export business of getting things in and out of the country more difficult. so any kind of important because the people might rely on whether it's electronics, whether it's consumer goods or any other kind of equity products that are coming brought in from outside of russia. that would certainly be impacted with those.

those goods would become more scarce. that should become more expensive, but i think that for the average, everyday life of the average everyday, russian, i would expect that the average cost to pay for housing for food and other sorts of things like that shouldn't be, shouldn't be materially impacted. it's less less, of course those things are being imported. can we say anything about overseas credit card transactions? for example, i know a lot of this is still being worked out. it's a really interesting question because a lot of this is building. we're done as you know, so, but it to the extent that, that these russian banks are also going to be excluded from other kinds of financial transact networks such as a visa or mastercard. right then certainly would be more difficult as well, or maybe it will be impossible. russia has its own domestic card network for people that have failed to leave russia. i would expect that that will continue to operate unaffected by all of this. over to the extent that russians have ford credit cards are issued by russian banks visa,

or master quarter to the extent that there are 4 is trying to use for credit cards in russia. this is definitely unexpected. that would be an issue as well. what kind of workarounds are there for russia is trying to work around the swift system. ok, so there are, there are several things that could, that could happen. right. so. busy some of them are things like using other networks, russia, that when an extra credit in 2014 began to establish its own network to rival swift china to do something similar over a number of years. so while they could turn to those networks to, to help process the payments and help with financial messaging, those networks have much less reach than swift us. after all, swift reaches over $11000.00 banks where the chinese and russian alternatives only reach hundreds of banks. no one knows exactly for sure how many, but what i would really expect to happen, the most obvious work around, is for russian banks to turn to under russian companies, excuse me,

to turn to unsanctioned banks for, to leave the top 3 that are currently in the draft list, but if they were to turn to other russian banks, or if they were to sort of show corporations that they would open it account with foreign banks to try and process those transactions. it's going to create a real headache state for western european banks that then we'll have to do some due diligence to find out exactly what's what, who's behind who's working for the corporation. is the one they're allowed to do business with? is it, in fact, even a russian bank is lord knows what could be, and that's where i think it's going to create really headaches for some of the banks in western europe or north america. the olympus with lepus advisors in berlin . thank you very much. my pleasure. well finally, fans of story, german soccer club chalka have cheered a decision to drop to drop russian state owned energy giant gas pump. as the team's main sponsor bands have been scrambling to buy version of the shirt without the gas

prom name and logo on it shall go. drop the gas from sponsorship in support of sanctions against russia and replaced and replaced it with the name of the club gas company sponsored shaka, since 2007 where that's it for me in the dw business team here, berlin, find out more aligned, the v dot com slash business is walking with to the point. strong opinions, clear positions, international perspectives. the warren ukraine seems even more frightening than before, and many people have begun to think the unthinkable. off to russian president vladimir putin appeared to suggest that he could be ready to use nuclear weapons. is the conflict entering a new dimension to the point with d, w. ah,

[000:00:00;00] with rico rico with people in trucks injured when trying to flee the city center and more refugees are being turned away at the board, families flane. velma, this wheeler, against administrator, people, fleet, clean drought,

and rough getting 200 people has sunk in the gnc around the world. more than 300000000 people are seeking refuge. we ask why? because no one should have to flee. make up your own mind. d, w for mines. ah, the crisis surrounding rushes invasion of ukraine suddenly seems even more frightening than before. and people have begun to think the unthinkable. this is russian president vladimir putin threatened to the world at large, suggesting perhaps that he could be ready to use nuclear weapons. it's a move that is triggered widespread fears, unparalleled since the cold war. so the question we are asking here on to the point