they were all down. it was a huge selloff, but we've come off. a lot of bargain basement buying, presumably. microsoft is back to 284, meta platforms is just on the verge of breaking back to $200 per share, and we have amazon which was down about $50-60, is now up 32. time's up for me, but i'd like to take this opportunity to welcome back neil cavuto. it's my first chance to say great to see you back, neil. neil same here, stuart. thank you. what a great show is. man, you had everything in it. i was noticing, we talk about oil, but agricultural commodities, you're the geography expert here, you know that's a great big sort of bastion for europe for, you know, all sorts of things like wheat, soybeans, corn, it's sort of like the food basket for europe, and that basket sure got a lot pricier. stuart: it sure did. you got it. neil: thank you, my friend. stuart's been laying out for you

brilliantly here, this is the deal, it's all the inflationary concern weighing, of course, certainly on stocks, and we do concentrate on oil. but i was just taking a peek at things like aluminum if up 2.5%, nickel prices have jumped about 3%. those are interesting to me for a couple of things. nickel, for example, is a key component in those batteries for electric cars, and they have been steadily rising throughout this because of the exposure to that a region of the world. i don't want to get into the minutiae here, but we talk about the ukraine being the breadbasket for europe because so much of, you know, the basic raw stuffs, if you will, behind food like wheat and corn and all of this, the fact of the matter is it is the kind of thing that has been rocketing. wheat up about 6%, corn 5%. in general, they have another thing they call a serial aggregate that they keep track of in europe. that's up 12%. a lot of that stuff goes into cereal.

i only indicate this to show how widespread the runup in basic commodities that's going way beyond just energy. but very, very quickly, boris johnson is speaking right now? all right, let's go to that right now. boris johnson, the prime minister of britain, promising still stiffer sanctions. >> -- to avoid bloodshed. for this, putin will stand condemned in the eyes of the world and of history. he will never be able to cleanse the blood of ukraine from his hands. and although the u.k. and our allies tried every avenue for diplomacy until the final hour, i'm driven to conclude that putin was always determined to attack his neighbor. no matter what we didment -- did. now we see him for what he is. a blood-stained aggressor who believes in imperial conquest. i am proud that britain did everything within our power to

help ukraine prepare for this onslaught, and we will do our utmost to offer more help as our brave friends defend their homeland. our embassy took the precaution on the 18th of february from relocating from kyiv to the city of lviv in western ukraine where our ambassadors continue to work with the ukrainian authorities and to support british nationals. now we have a clear mission. diplomatically, politically, economically and, eventually, militarily this hideous and barbarous venture of vladimir putin must end in failure. at the g7 meeting this afternoon a, we agreed to work in unity to maximize the economic price that putin will pay for his ace depression. aggression. and this must include ending europe's collective dependence on russian oil and gas.

we have served to empower putin for too long, so i welcome chancellor shotle's excellent position to halt nord stream 2. mr. speaker, countries that together comprise about half world's economy and now engaged in maximizing pressure, economic pressure, on ones that make up a mere 2 the %. for our part today, the u.k. is announcing the largest and most severe package of economic sanctions that russia has ever seen. with new financial measures, we're taking new powers to target russian finance in addition to the banks we've already sanctioned this week, today in concert with the united states, we are imposing a full asset freeze on vtb. these powers will enable us totally to exclude russian banks from the u.k. financial system which is, of course, by far the largest in europe, stopping them from accessing sterling and clearing payments through the

u.k. and with around half of russia's trade currently in u.s. dollars and sterling, i'm pleased to tell the house that the united states is taking similar measures. these powers will also enable us to ban russian state and private companies from raising funds in the u.k., banning dealing with their securities and making loans to them. we will limit the amount of money that a russian nationals will be able to deposit in their u.k. bank accounts, and sanctions will also be applied to belarus for its role in the assault on ukraine. overall, we'll be imposing asset freezes on more than a hundred new entities and individuals on top of the hundreds that we've already announced. this includes all the major manufacturers that support putin's war machine. furthermore, we are also bannin.

next, on top of the financial measures and in full concert with the united states and the e.u., we will introduce new trade restrictions and stringent export controls similar to those that they in the u.s. are implementing. we will bring forward new legislation to ban the export of all dual-use items to russia including a range of high-end and critical technological equipments and components in sectors including electronics, telecommunications and aerospace. legislation to implement this will be laid early next week. these trade sanctions will constrain mush shah's military industrial -- russia's military industrial and technological capabilities for years to come. we're bringing forward measures on -- from the economic crime bill to be introduced before the house rises for easter, and we will set out further details

before easter on the range of policies to be included in the full bill in the next session including on reforms to companies and a register of overseas property ownership. we will set up a new dedicated kleptocracy cell in the national crime agency to target sanctions evasion and corrupt russian assets hidden in the u.k., and that means oligarchs in london will have nowhere to hide. and, mr. speaker, i know that in this house will have great interest in the potential of cutting russia out from swift. and i can confirm if, as i've always said, that nothing is off the table. [inaudible conversations] but for all these measures to be successful, it is vital that we have the unity of our partners, the unity in the g7 and other

fora. and, mr. speaker, russian investors are already delivering their verdict on the wisdom of putin's actions. and so far today russian stock toes are down by as much as -- stocks are down by as much as 45%, wiping $250 billion from their value in the biggest one-day decline on record. spare bank, russia's biggest lender, is down by as much as 45%, and another by as much as 39% while the ruble has plummeted to record lows against the dollar. we will continue on a remorseless mission to squeeze russia from the global economy piece by piece, day by day and week by week, and we will, of course, use britain's position in every international forum to condemn the onslaught against ukraine, and we will counter the

kremlin's blizzard of lies and misinformation by telling the truth about putin's war of choice and his war of aggression. and we will work with our allies on the urgent need to protect other european countries that are not members of nato and who could become targets of putin's playbook of subversion and aggression. and we will resist any creeping temptation to accept what putin is doing today as a fait accompli. there can be no creeping normalization, not now, not in the months to come, not in the years ahead. we must strengthen nato's defenses still further. and so today i called for a meeting of nato leaders which will take place tomorrow, and i will be convening the countries that contribute to the joint expeditionary force which is led by the united kingdom and comprises both nato and non-nato

members. last saturday i warned that this invasion would have global economic consequences, and this morning the oil price has risen strongly. the government will do everything possible to safeguard our own people from the repercussions to the cost of living. and, of course, we stand ready to protect our country from any threats including in cyberspace. above all, the house will realize the harold and heavy truth -- hard and heavy truth that a we now live in a continent where an expansionist power e deploying one of the world's most formidable military machines is trying to redraw the map of europe in blood and conquer an independent state by force of arms. and it's vital for the safety of every nation that putin's squalid venture should ultimately fail and be seen to

fail. however long it takes, that will be the steadfast and unflynn. ing goal -- unflinching goal of the united kingdom. i hope that every member of this house and every one of our great allies, certain that together we have the power and the will to defend the cause of peace and justice as we have always done. and i say to the people of russia, again, whose president has just authorized an onslaught against a fellow slavic people, i cannot believe that that this horror is being done in your name or that you really want the pariah status that these actions will bring to the putin regime. and to our ukrainian friends in this moment of agony, i say that we are with you, and we are on your side. your right to choose your own destiny is the right that the united kingdom and our allies will always defend, and in that spirit i join you in saying --

[speaking in native tongue] and i commend this statement to the house. [inaudible conversations] >> i now call the leader of the opposition, ceer stormer. kier starmer -- neil: all right, you've been listening to boris johnson, of course, britain is the financial powerhouse of europe. one of toed developments here was banning the russian airline from coming into britain. that was not expected. also they did not move on this so-called swift system. you hear a good deal about it. that's the society of worldwide interbank financial telecommunications. i know it's a mouthful, but it is really the means by which financial transactions that are conducted worldwide with countries, and i liken it to how you wire money in this country and any country. there's a standard way you do that, a protocol, if you will, for banks to recognize payments pretty much from everywhere. well, you want to do commerce in countries and exchange assets

and backup reserves, buy things like oil, sell things like oil, buy wheat, sell corn, all of that stuff, it's a gobbledygook thing here and i apologize because you've with heard it so much, but if you can't play in that game, if they swiftly cut you out from swift, you can't do any e of that. in other words, if you don't have the means by which you can wire money when you're trying to wire money and they're not letting you on the system allowing you to wire money, you're neither able to send money out or get money in. if you kick russia out of that financial mechanism, it's a big deal. now, what i found interesting about boris johnson's statement just there, they're looking at it. now, we're going to be hearing from the president of the united states momentarily. that was something that he hadn't done. there's a lot of concern about dropping this for russia because the fear is other countries could do an end run around that. there's a new black financial market, if you will.

i think that's much hullabaloo about nothing here, but having said that, there is a concern, be careful what you wish for. you want them to have a financial price to play, but you don't want to go too far. you're going to hear a lot about this swift thing, and i know it gets in the weeds. but it is very important for any country from the most pristine to even rogue countries to not have that interrupted. only two countries are not part of the swift process right now, and they are iran and north korea. it looks like they're trying to stage something so that russia will join them. talk to north korea and iran, and they do find other ways around this. there are plenty of ways you can sneak money in this world, but it makes life very, very difficult. one other side note i want to say about alienating the russians, there is a price to pay, obviously, for invading another country, and now german businesses have announced that they have canceled a meeting

with vladimir putin. so you're going to start seeing another, a far more psychological development here, about ostracizing the russian leader, that he's not invited to their powwow withs or international business conferences. germany the first to say we're not going, we don't want you. expect others to follow that. but again, these are fairly fast-moving developments right now. we're waiting to hear what the president will have to say on all of this. edward lawrence is at the white house with maybe some early indications. edward, what are you hearing? >> reporter: yeah, neil. i also want to point out two other things that boris johnson had saidment one, export controls would be instituted. they will not export the technology that russia would need going forward. that's something they had talked about here at the white hou. also that the sanctions would apply to belarus, which is where some of the attacks have now come from. you know, the ukrainian ambassador here in the united states held a news conference not too long ago. in that she said missiles, at least four missiles were

launched from belarus, and planes came into ukraine from belarus. and she says or she claims they attacked not only hospitals, but air bases, airfields,, military bases as well as the nuclear site at chernobyl, and she is also calling on the west to send more military aid and continue that military aid. i want to lay out what happened this morning here at the white house. once the first bombs started to fall here, the president had a phone call between president joe biden and the russian president, zelenskyy. in that phone call the president condemned what was happening and offered support to zelenskyy saying that the world would condemn that. now, the white house also released a statement condemning the attacks and outlining that u.s. partners would announce if severe sanctions, some of which you heard from the prime minister of the united kingdom. the president convened a meeting then of his national security council. so we're hearing that the sanctions from the president will be announced later on, and you see this boris johnson just spoke announcing all of those things that we just outlined and

went through. aerofloat is a big deal, they fly into heathrow, that will no longer be able to happen. that's the russian airline that comes in. we will also hear about sanctions from the united states is about -- in about 15 minutes or so. the white house saying it will not take any action without the full cooperation of the g7. that meeting happened this morning, here it is from the french side. president joe biden is in the upper corner of that meeting, and that is the french president. this meeting discussed all of the things that should come out of this, some of which boris johnson outlined. the ceo of the american petroleum institute says steps need to be taken now to make the u.s. an energy leader again. so allies rely on us, not enemies, for energy. listen to what he said. >> one, they should reverse the decision on the keystone the xl pipeline. two, they should reverse the moratorium on leasing on federal lands and in federal waters. three, they should actually put in place a new five-year plan

for development of the gulf of mexico. and, four, they should reverse all of the regulatory impediments that they've put in place that are hindering american energy development today. >> reporter: and the state department saying that they have suspended all operations and telling americans in ukraine to take cover now. we can also tell you that the president's comments have now been moved to 1:30 eastern time, another hour, about an hour and 15 minutes from right now. neil? neil: all right. this is the sec time that those comments -- second time those comments have been delayed, and i'm wondering if they're having trouble getting everyone onboard on maybe some of the more onerous sanctions. i say onerous, because they could boomerang on the very people imposing them. this swift thing would be among them. do you know what's causing this delay? >> reporter: don't know what's causing the delay, but i can tell you there are reports out there now that are saying there's a coordinated effort in the early phases now to release oil from strategic petroleum

reserves around the globe for a number of different countries, and if that's the case, they might be trying to offset some to the problems they're seeing with the high oil prices, also possibly looking at maybe russian energy industries to sanction which then they would need extra supplies to sort of offset that. that could be part of the delay. we don't have an official word from the white house as to exactly why this has been delayed twice. neil: all right, got it. edward lawrence, thank you very, very much. who are we going to how now, guys? i apologize? okay. mike tobin in lviv, ukraine. mike if, i apologize for that. how are things looking there? >> reporter: well, there are a lot of developments, alarming developments. we know, we now have confirmation that russian forces are in the chernobyl exclusion zone, the area around the chernobyl nuke hard plant site of the 1986 disaster. chernobyl is just a little to the northwest of the capital city of kyiv. there has been some reporting about a nuclear waste facility

being targeted or hit in the area. that is not confirmed. but the president of ukraine, zelenskyy, is saying that his fighters, his soldiers are fight fighting very hard to prevent that from happening. we know that there have been some 396 artillery rounds or mortars fired and seven bridges that have been destroyed. as far as the invasion of ukraine, what we have seen has been massive, it has been streaming. targets have included runways, airstrips, air defenses, military barracks, the ministry of intelligence, military intelligence, was hit in the capital city of kyiv. as far as the ground offensive, it is coming from three directions, from the north russian armor is advancing really on two tracks towards the city of kyiv, from the east, russian armor's advancing toward kharkiv, and we've got a lot of reports about intense fighting

around kharkiv, and you have russian armor advancing from the cry mean peninsula. here in the city of lviv, what we saw throughout the day really appeared to be business as normal, but speaking with people what we found is a great deal of resolve. veterans promising to pick up a weapon again, civilians who promised that they were ready to fight. >> translator: it had to happen because putin totally went crazy. and me as a patriot of ukraine, i'm going to sign up for duty. >> fight with whatever we have. we don't have any other choice. this is our land. >> reporter: and the national police are now handing out weapons to all veterans. so we could very well see a dynamic, neil, where the fighting ends up street to street out here. back to you. neil: mike tobin, thank you very much. be safe, mike. in the meantime, the former ambassador to ukraine, our former ambassador to ukraine is kind enough to join us. ambassador, great to see you. what do you think of everything that's been going down?

>> look, part -- putin has been conducting an aggressive foreign policy for 15 years. he invaded georgia in 2008, he took crimea in 2014. finally the west is fighting back. but what he did yesterday -- or, actually, early this morning was something unprecedented. he knew he was going to get smacked hard by the west, yet he still went in with a full scale invasion of ukraine. this means he has contempt for the west, he thinks he can get his way by intimidation and by force, and he is going to, if he succeeds in ukraine, he's going to challenge our nato allies, the baltic states, poland, romania, etc. we have a vital stake of helping ukraine stop him in ukraine. neil: but will we? i mean, let's say if we just leave it at ukraine, there are fears that this dose way beyond -- goes way beyond ukraine. do you think that's a real possibility? >> it certainly goes beyond ukraine if putin wins in

ukraine. we're not going to defend ukraine with the 82nd airborne, but we need to hit him with the full source of sanctions, so we have to take russia out of swift. we have to put sanctions on the russian central bank, we have to sanction thousands of high official ands their family members. we have to increase deployments in nay toe's -- maybe permanent so moscow's geopolitical position is weakened. and we have to maintain the supply of weapons to ukraine. zelenskyy is not karzai who got out of dodge when the russians -- when the taliban went large into kabul. zelenskyy's going to stay and fight as are the people of ukraine. we need to provide them with the weapons which the the biden administration is weak and late to do. we need to be sending as many stingers as possible -- oh, excuse me, we should also -- neil: all right then. go ahead. >> we should be informing the russian people of putin's aggression, because the russian media is lying to the russian people. it's saying they're only

peacekeepers in the east of ukraine. the russian people don't want to make a war against the ukrainians. if they see what russia's government is doing, this will be a geopolitical problem for putin. neil: got you. john herbst, the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine. connell mcshane has been following the market falloff. we had just slid from our worst levels of the day. the nasdaq was darn close to breaking even. that was then, very different situation right now. connell, what's going on? >> reporter: yeah, we've been drifting down. you know, when prime minister johnson was speaking about some of the sanctions that they're putting in place in the u.k., you did see the market drift down more, now back towards the lows. the nasdaq had turned positive for a little while cans which is interesting because the tech markets were getting hammered in the premarket, but now down a significant amount. the dow's into what we call a correction, 10% off the high, nasdaq might very well be in bear market territory by the edge of the day. we'll see how the afternoon goes. one of the things to watch is

what's happening overseas in stock markets and also, you know, with currencies which are very, very important particularly when it comes to sanctions. i mean, the russian stock market, as you might expect, got absolutely hammeredded today. at one point the benchmark in russia was down 45%, closed down 33 president on the day. other markets in europe and asia have been done. the russian ruble hit a record low against the dollar, but the dollar's been strong against a number of currencies around the world. euro's down against the dollar, what have you. you'll hear flight to safety and that kind of thing. it's important to note the dollar is still the dominant if reserve currency, so, you know, our ability to impose sanctions depends on the u.s. dollar a lot, so we do see strength there. we'll watch where the money goes in the afternoon. as i said, tech was hammered early, came back, it's down again. travel stocks getting hit hard, you think about some of those airlines, certainly higher oil prices would hurt their profit margins. so we'll watch these fluctuations. there have already been a number

of them today. and, neil, go back to the swift system because you brought it up and explained, essentially, what it is. that is seen by many people, you talk to investors especially, it's kind of the nuclear option in all of this. and if russia is pulled out of this system, kind of -- i guess like the plumbing system for global finance, they can't really do much, right? so this would hurt russia. but what would they do in response? they've already been public about it. i was looking at a quote from a russian member of parliament that said if russia's disconnected from swift, then we will not receive currency, but buyers, european countries in the first place, will not receive our goods, oil, gas, metals, other important componentings. hey, we're going to cut the gas off to europe. so there would obviously be a big price to pay for that if we do go that far, boris johnson saying he can confirm nothing is off the table. so far we have not gone that far. neil: we've not yet done that. that's a you have tough lever to ll. connell, thank you very much. as connell was detailing that, we're getting word that the

chernobyl power plant has been captured by russian forces. this is coming from an adviser to the ukrainian presidential office. i don't know if that's necessarily a grand prize or whether it's still operational. we're told that the plant actually has four different reactors, each campaign of producing about a thousand megawatts of electric power, and that two of them are still active, two are not. but again, it is not considered, i would think considered, a valuable prize for the russians to have because the area around it, you might recall, has almost become like a nuclear winter. all sorts of movies on this and whether it's a safe praise to go maybe for a century -- place to go, maybe for a century to come. the indications are that russian forces have captured that. so we'll keep you posted. also keeping you posted on a more traditional energy source, what's happening with oil. for more on that, phil flynn. phil. >> it's getting ugly, neil, no doubt about it. when you see the price of wti

shoot up, get over $100 a barrel and pull back, we know that's going to be a lot of pain for the u.s. consumers. you look across the board, you were talking about the swift system a little bit, believe it or not even talk of that's impacting russian oil supplies today. what's happened is a lot of the banks are fearful that the swift system's ban for russia may come into place, so they're not offering any new contracts with russia right now. russia in response right now is theming people -- telling people, or hey, buy our oil. we're going to sell it to you at a discount just as long as we get paid. even though there's reports that russian oil supplies have not been impeded because of this conflict, it has been. we've seen a major oil export terminal shut down, so it's definitely on hold, and it could get a lot worse. if putin decides to cut off the supply to europe, that will be a major energy shock and even releasing oil from the strategic

petroleum deserve -- reserve might not hold off the impact. neil: you know, you've always astutely reminded folks no matter how much oil, let's say, we get from from russia -- about 7% of what we get -- it's the kind of thing that oil, natural gas, all of this stuff trades in the open market. so they gauge things much as stock traders do and trade on, you know, supply and demand and fears. 9 and the same thing that a lot of, you know, stock traders, you know, pounce on. ask right now they're prevailing wisdom is you cut away russia's supply in the global market, you're going to see prices spike. i guess what i'm asking you is how big a spike. what are they talking about? >> well, i'll tell you what, it's a major oil producer like russia sneezes, the rest of the world's going to catch a cold. that's exactly what's happening. right now the average -- for

wti, crude could be as high as $11 10 a barrel, maybe higher $ 1110 seems the most -- 110 seems the most reasonable assessment. brent crude in europe, obviously, higher, $1.20. either one of those factors come into play. that's going to be a real pain for the economy. and it's also potentially going to have to change fed policy. the fed wants to cool down inflation by raising rates, it's going to be really difficult if you've got oil prices at $110 a barrel because you're really going to risk pushing the economy into a recession at that point. neil: all right. i guess the only question is, you know, gas generally dovetails off of that. it can be immediate, it could take a little longer. what are you handicapping? if you get up to $100 and stay there or better, how does that translate into gas prices? i know separately we have to deal with states and taxes that

are extreme in places like california, massachusetts, but what are we looking at? >> you know what? if i'll tell you, how close are you to a gas station, right? i would imagine that these prices are going to start going up immediately. what we saw in the futures market today on the wholesale price, you know, we were up 15 cents a gallon. add on another 10 cents at the pump, so i'm looking at least a quarter for what's happened thus far. so we would expect those prices to go up. you know, the bigger concern for gasoline prices over the long run if we get above $100 a barrel, you're talking a national average of $4, a major disruption somewhere in the area of $5 a gallon at the high side. but, you know, the other thing you have to worry about is a presidential cyber attack the, right? we've had pipelines shut down here in the united states. that's a real risk. and if that happens, these prices, you know, you could be talking $7 a gallon in parts of the country. neil: all right. thank you very much, my friend if.

phil flynn. i want to go back before i go to gillian turner's just been doing great work following this, a development we told you about at the white house as the president now has pushed back his planned announcement on what we're going to do in response. it was supposed to be at noon eastern time, then it was 12:30 eastern time, just a minute or two ago, now they're pushing it back an hour. i'm getting some interesting exchanges with a key source i have who says that the swift issue is the issue that is making this not go too swiftly. i thought that was a good play on words, but he was trying to explain this international, global payment system that you hear so much about that allows countries to do commerce with one another. and kicking russia out of swift, if you will, not allowing them to use this mechanism by which countries can conduct basic commerce with the outside world. but there are some concerns about be careful going this route, mr. president, even from other countries and financial

interests of the united states fears it could boomerang on us, that you all of a sudden now trigger another black market that would lead to bartering and smuggling, the same accusations that developed after iran and north korea were kicked out of swift. in both cases, quite some time ago. so they're kind of rogue members. the fear is adding russia to that grouping will give alternatives even more clout. i don't know how credible this is, how realistic this is, how that maybe could explain the delay in the administration's announcement. but many say if you really want to exact pain, kick russia out of swift and make it next to impossible to do commerce. i liken it -- and it's sort of like a rough analogy here to how we wire money back and forth no matter where you live in this world. most countries have a standard by which their citizens can wire money in and out of the countries all the way to big businesses. can and that's been kind of, you

know, the system with good and bad countries, rogue countries all the way up to major western powers have done business. so the fear, i guess, seems to be kick russia out, you're inviting an alternative system to this. i think that's a bit of a stretch, but that is a concern and might, i stress, might explain the delay out of the administration on issuing its own sanctions and thought to be far, far more end sweeping. now to to the aforementioned gillian turner following these developments including talk of cyber threats as well. what do you have? >> we're getting new information about the threat we face here in the united states from a potential russian cyber attack. a homeland security source is telling us that as of this hour, they still consider that threat active. it is not at all diminished by the fact that putin's now launched this full scale invasion into yaw ukraine --

ukraine. ukraine's government and banking system have fallen victim to massive, sweeping cyber attacks. lawmakers here are attributing those directly to putin's cyber henchmen. take a listen. >> i think the likelihood of cyber attacks on ukraine, i mean, it's happening every day. they were attacked yesterday, just their special security services were hit right before the attack. so cyber warfare against ukraine already deep into it. as far as the united states, absolutely. we know elements inside of russia have attacked the united states multiple times before, so we can expect that to happen. >> reporter: now, here at home we are told that existing intelligence shows should a worst case scenario unfold and the u.s. power grid go down, it could take as long as 1-2 weeks to get it back up and running at full capacity again. just yesterday though the white house says there is nothing doing. >> there is no current threat as a it relates to cyber here. the fbi and all of the agencies

in the government always provide regular updates on what businesses and entities should do to prepare for the potential for. there is still no immediate, specific threat. >> reporter: so another big concern among national security officials here in the u.s. is protecting american banks. should any type of attack, cyber attack target u.s. banks the way that they have in ukraine over the last few days, seems like rising gas prices would be not our top concern any longer, neil. neil: yeah, that's wild. gillian, thank you very much. gillian, obviously, outside the white house. let's go to congressman pat bell, the texas republican congressman who sits on the house armed services committee. congressman, very nice to have you to take the time. this whole issue with cyber attacks, i would imagine it becomes heightened now in this environment. we know russia can pull them off. we know a lot of russian entities have no trouble pulling them off, so i would think that's a legitimate threatment. >> -- threat.

>> oh, neil, there's no doubt. that's something i've been worried about for the last few months. we saw what happened when the cyber attacks hit jbs and the colonial pipeline. colonial pipeline was responsible for providing energy to 50 million americans. it's something that we have to be on almost def con 1 right now because if we do pull russia off the swift, as you were talking about before, then i think that putin -- just knowing how we react and his ego and his narcissism -- i think he'll order an attack, and we better be ready for it. neil: what do you make of the thinking of vladimir putin getting beyond these cyber attack threats, the fact that, you know, i know that the russian people get very little news, congressman. but i'm sure, you know, there are videos that come back to them that show dead russian soldiers, the old soviet union and its ill-gotten venture into

afghanistan, that won't fly well. and i'm just wondering how do you think he's conducting this or so-called targeted strikes? it seems to be as much limiting russian deaths as ukrainian deaths. what do you make of it? >> no, neil, he he seems to be applying a force protection strategy, for sure. i mean, we have to remember afghanistan. the russians weren't 10 feet tall, and it was proven. that was a very different situation, but putin, he -- just last year he was asked are the ukrainians and russians brothers, and his answer was very revealing, it was very telling. he said we're not brothers, we're not siblings. we share the same soul. so he's always seen that the ukraine is part of his sphere of influence. but unfortunately for him, 70% of the ukrainians don't want to be in the russian sphere of influence and hence the current crisis that we have right now. we need to act strongly. this is an affront to world

peace, it's a threat, he is a bully, and he has a delusional fantasy, and we cannot let him succeed like we did in 2008 in georgia and 2014 in ukraine -- rather, crimea. neil: but what if he does? it just seems a matter of time at least given the overwhelming advantages russia has,s that he will, he'll take over ukraine. then what? do you fear that he looks at poland? do you fear he addresses some of these other break republics? belarus as well, those 30,000 soldiers, they're not going anywhere. so he already has his feet in some rather disparate countries. >> neil, there's no doubt that he can win militarily with ukraine, but then what's next? you have a country of 40 million plus people, and if they resist, then he's going to -- if he has to truly occupy the country, he might need 350,000 troops which is a third of his military, and that's going to be problematic for him. and the world will be watching. and, yes, of course, we're

worried about estonia, latvia, to poland, they're nato countries and we do have the article v provision, of course, an attack on one is an attack at all. i think that's why we don't see 150,000 troops poised to invade those countries right now, but i think we should make our nato bases permanent to show him that is off the table permanently because you're talking about a hot war with the united states. neil: very well put. congressman,e appreciate that. texas republican congressman path fallon. again, we have been trying to give you an overview about how the markets are responding. stocks are sliding, they were expected to, they are. we are seeing some come well off their lows, but the predictable issues are the ones you would think maybe exposed to the european continent and how they're taking all of this. and it's interesting then to add to that that we've seen a better than 6% plunge in the stock of airbnb which has a lot of entities abroad and could impact travel, likewise carnival and

norwegian cruise lines, united airlines, american airlined, alaska air, delta, even ford. anything or anyone or any entity that has exposure to the region or could be impacted by a global slowdown, particularly those who want to travel, are getting hit and hit hard. all of those issues i mentioned down at least 5%. they have shaved earlier losses when they were down 8%. but these are the conditions in which we live, my friends. people are, well, enthused when they see an 8% slide be only 5%. stay with us, you are watching fox business. ♪ ♪ as a professional bull-rider i'm used to taking chances. but when it comes to my insurance i don't. i use liberty mutual, they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need.

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neil: all right. i do want to draw your attention

to the 10-year treasury note. right now it's yielding about 1.9 92%. remember when it had hopped over 2% for a while today at our yield lows when muse of this broke of the invasion going on when russian troops had massed their massive attack into ukraine, we got down as low as 1.846%. so we're about in the middle ground here. a flight to quality, if you will, the benefit of the dollar. we've also seen bold gold ramp up although i noticed it was up about $15 or a little bit more than .8%. it had been up better than $30. silver is nominally up about two cents, it had been close to ten cents, and copper and platinum which were both gaining are now losing. we're seeing the same thing play out in reverse in some but certainly not all stocks. technology stocks, for example, with the likes of amazon and tesla and apple came well off their lows briefly into positive

territory. doesn't apply across the board, but i only mention it because this day ain't done. we've got a little bit more than three hours of trading to go. there used to be a notion that the worst thing -- worse things look for stocks, the better they look for crypto and anything having to do with it. of course, lately that hasn't been panning out, and it's especially the case today. susan li has been following that part of the story. hey, susan. susan: yeah. neil, you've got to be impressed by the fact that the nasdaq came down from 3.5% down at at the opening bell back into positive territory. still looking at the worst month for the dow and the s&p 500, and a lot of people say bitcoin and cryptocurrency trades along with stocks and the stock market. i think this is highlighted by a really interesting and educational thread on social media by one of the richest names in cryptocurrency, the founder of the ftx exchange which, of course, has tom brady as part of its endorsers. and he said, if we can bring this tweet up, a $28 billion

30-year-old. he said, basically, i'll get back to this in just a bit, but if you can bring up what he said there, he said, look, the algorithms, there are algorithm 'ems that trade with cryptocurrency and individuals that trade cryptocurrency. if you look at what the algorithms are doing, if you look at the data and decide that bitcoin should be 80% correlated to the s&p 500 with a beta of 4. what that means, neil, if the s&p 500 moves 4%, bitcoin moves 4% n. a highly leveraged trade, i would say 80% of the trades that in crypto are leveraged, many are bidding not just $1, but $5, on top of that, that cascade comes down quickly and it's more of a risk asset these days and more institutionalizeized meaning individual traders and other banks and hedge funds have bought into it over the past 18 months or so. neil: susan, thank you very much for that. susan li following all these

developments. i do want to remind you of the vix, the so-called fear index. it was well over 30, i think around 34 right now. anything over 30 indicates serious concern and, obviously, that means significant and serious fear. but here, too, this thing had jumped close to 4% -- 14% earlier today. that doesn't mean things are easing, they're just well off their worst and probably most anxious moments of the day. but it is a way to sort of handicap what's going on beneath the surface. of you have market averages that show one thing and churning beneath that might show another. we'll keep january eye -- an eye on it. delighted to have the governor of colorado, jared polis. governor, good to see you. i was thinking to a governor, you know, a lot of your citizens rather than -- no matter their politics, of course, are going to be concerned and is watching what's happening half a world away and the effect it's going to have on them, rising gas

prices and everything else. would you support, governor, you know, easing or temporarily withdrawing the state gasoline tax and even support a move to remove the federal gas lean tax to ease the pain at the pump? if. >> i think that's a great short-term step, neil. by the way, welcome back. we're just so glad to hear that you're better and doing well. neil: thank you very much. >> senator mark kelly and senator maggie hassan have introduced a bill to suspend the 18-cent-a-gallon gas tax for a year. i think that would be a great step. here we already in colorado have legislation to avoid a 2-cent gas fee increase. if we can do more, we should. that's one place where we can make a short-term impact. a lot of other efforts are more medium and long term. neil: do you worry, governor, that this drags on a while, maybe extends beyond ukraine?

what do you think? >> well, clearly, i mean, part of the devastation of this is, of course -- and, by the way, i and colorado stand with the free and independent people of ukraine -- but this also upsets geopolitical stabilities which is bad for the economy globally, bad for trade. well beyond the ramifications of cutting off russia from the global financial system which we absolutely should do and the negative impact of those restrictions which are necessary to penalize aggression. it also means there's now a risk premium with regard to additional actions. there's a, this is the largest land war in europe since world war ii that's already begun. we hope it can be contained. i hope that the wen powers take steps to contain it, but this is absolutely a destabilizing factor for the global economy. neil: governor, while it has you and it seems an arcane side note, but we just had susan li reporting on what's been happening with cryptocurrencies and related crypto plays. you were very early on to the

appeal of crypto. and, you know, of course, it's fallen on hard times of late, of late. it's a volatile investment. but i think you were among those who said, you know, you would even be open to having residents pay their taxes in crypto. do you still feel that way now? >> yeah. we're actually moving forward, colorado's a very crypto-good state. -- forward state. and by the way, the state is not staking any assets in crypto, we're simply asking a trans-- adding a transaction allayier for convenience where the funds could be convert ised realtime into dollars which is how we budget for purposes of state piece, hopefully soon driver's license fees, but state taxes by summer people will be able to pay in crypto through our port ifal. neil: interesting. governor, thank you very much on such a crazy day for taking the time. jared to list -- polis.

let's go to someone who says we have a number of weapons in our arsenal including the dollar. right now it is getting a sort of flight to quality lift because that's what's driven bond prices up, yields down. greta daniels follows this -- brendan daniels follows this very closely. brendan, how does that runup in the dollar translate in terms of our impact and going after vladimir putin? >> well, neil, first, it's amazing to have you back. i'm glad to see you better. you came out of it stronger, is so good to see you again. neil: thank you very much. >> the dollar is a fantastic weapon. i mean, 60% of all global economic activity and goes sents are -- deposits are in the dollar. it's the main transaction material for everything from trans-atlantic pipelines to major gas flows across europe,

u.s., china, russia. and so we can exact a lot of punishment through specific sanctions on russian banks, on russian oil, on russian ambitions to create isolated environments where the united states not responsible or not a participant to their growthment -- growth. and so what we're missing here or what we could be doing is focusing on those transactions, on those major programs and projects where they hit the russian allies in the hardest place, right? and that would impact china and india and a lot of the other countries that today do a lot of work with russian state-owned entities. finish. neil: now, with the dollar so strong, it takes more rubles, it takes more chinese yuans to make

up for that, but it does have a boomerang effect, right? it makes it more prohibitive for international and u.s. concerns to make as much money abroad because they get fewer dollars back for that. i'm just wondering how that gets sorted out. >> well, neil, i think the issue here is that the we've exited the normal international economic free market in the last 24 hours. right? my thoughts and prayers are with the ukrainian people, but the decision to unilaterally impact the sovereignty of a neighboring country, i mean, russia has done something that is not unprecedented, but is a milestone in our history. and even if it becomes a little bit harder for the e.u. and the united states to, for instance, deal with assets --

neil: but net-net, it's a good trade-off, okay? i jumped on you with there because we have a hard break coming, my friend. i apologize for the length of this, but very interesting development. i didn't think of something as obvious as the dollar could be the stuff that brings russia to its knees. that is not happening yet, i might point out, and there's no magical turn around in stocks, but we are seeing some turn around. after this. care. it has the power to change the way we see things. ♪♪ it inspires us to go further. ♪♪ it has our back. and goes out of its way to help. ♪♪ when you start with care, you get a different kind of bank. t- look, this isn'te. my first rodeo,

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neil: all right, we're following the fall ifout of the, well, the attack and the big invasion, now about 30 minutes away from comments from president biden. he has been working with concert with the g7, i should say is, as to how to respond. we are told there's some maybe agreement on issues of how far to go, a lot of the sanctions that were done prior to the invasion. but timed with the introduction of russian soldiers in ukraine we're believed to be weak and few and far between. this is supposed to be far more sweeping, but as we've said many, many times on this show and history, unfortunately, bears this out, very rarely do you see any country humbled or brought to its knees by sanctions, usually other means. overthrow in the case of moammar gaddafi in libya due to a black

market that can -- where there's a will, there's a way. they're trying to remove that for vladimir putin. we shall see. let's go to the white house and our edward lawrence with what he's hearing. hey, edward. >> reporter: hey, neil, the russian president over the past several months has worked for a closer relationship with the chinese president, possibly to try and get around some of the sanctions that he knew would be coming should he go in and invade which is now what's happening in ukraine. now, those remarks you talking about, in about 30 minutes -- no word exactly from the white house, and we've asked about why these have been delayed, but they have been delayed twice. the u.s. will not act without coordinate coordination -- coordination with the other g7 members. there was video released by the french of that meeting, it shows the french president with president joe biden in the corner of that video message. i can tell you that the sanctions will be coming, and

that is what the president is going to announce. the united kingdom, british prime minister boris johnson announced some of the sanctions going forward. he said the g7 allies will be excluding russian banks from doing businesses with banks in their countries, that includes the u.s. johnson also says the united king.com has seized assets on more than 100 entities and individuals including manufacturers who support the russian president. the russian airline has been banned from landing in the u.k. that's a big deal, heathrow. he also said allies are banning certain exports of technology to russia which relates in future in aerospace and telecommunications. >> this hideous and barbarous venture of vladimir putin must end in failure. at the g7 meeting this afternoon, we agreed to work in unity to maximize the economic price that putin will pay for his aggression, and this must include ending europe's collective dependence on russian oil and gas.

>> reporter: now, excluding russia from the swift of system was not on the list of sanctions. johnson said that it remains on the table but, again, not part of these sanctions. so the u.s. maintains that we meet escalation wees calculation of sanctions, so far no official announcement from the if white house here. but as i said, boris johnson has said the u.s. was ongourd with these sanctions -- onboard. what we're seeing in ukraine is a multi-phased operation, this is the first phase of that. republicans have been calling out president biden to act harshly saying he's already waited too long. >> i believe that that weakness has been direct arely a result of president biden's policies especially regarding nord stream and energy security. and and i'm calling on president biden, speaker pelosi to pass midland over moscow to make sure that we have broad, sweeping sanctions that will cripple the russian economy. >> reporter: and we will see exactly what the president says coming up in about 30 minutes or so. neil? neil: all right.

thank you, edward, very much. edward at white house. let's go to hillary vaughn right now, capitol hill, because you know the flipside of exacting pain on vladimir putin is, well, you're going to exact pain on a lot of folks in this country as well. hillary. >> reporter: hi, neil. well, you're exactly right. energy policy, the u.s.' energy policy, has come into focus today here on capitol hill. but also what the sanctions are going to look like, the additional economic punishment that president biden is expected to schaap putin with today. there's -- slap putin with today. there's new developments among some democrats here on capitol hill. we had a chance to talk with the house intelligence committee chair adam schiff just moments ago. he explicitly said he would support removing russia from the swift banking system. the reason why this is relevant, as edward reported, that's not expected to be on the table today, and we have heard from senator bob menendez, he's the

top democrat on the senate foreign relations committee, he calls removing russia from swift essentially mother of all sanctions. it does not seem like that is in play today, but democrats on capitol hill would be onboard if bind were to move forward in that -- biden were to move forward in that direction. on the energy policy front, republicans on capitol hill want president biden to reverse prosecute course he has taken which is -- from the course he has taken and instead return the united states to energy dominance. senator james plankford -- lankford saying in a statement every dollar paid for russian energy is a dollar they will use to murder their ukrainian neighbors. america must lead the world by increasing our production of energy to decrease relicense on russian exports. -- reliance. we should make sure that immediately dries up. so i had a chance to ask house intel committee chair adam schiff today if he would support

a course reversal, a 180 from climate focus to u.s. energy dominance. is it time for us to abandon climate-focused energy policies like a drill ban on federal lands, like killing pipelines and instead increase u.s. oil and gas production in full forcesome. >> i don't think the response to putin making war on ukraine ought to be the dismantling of our protections against climate change. i do think what it ought to prompt is a wholesale effort to wean europe off of russian oil and gas so that russia can no longer use that as leverage against europe. >> reporter: but, neil, he did not say that the u.s. should take russia's place to replace that european dependence i on -- dependency on russian oil and gas. he did tell me he thinks this should be, essentially, the final death of nord stream 2. he also said there are concerns

among both sides of the aisle on capitol hill that what is happening in ukraine could percolate here in the form of cyber attacks. we have heard from sources telling fox from the doj, fbi, d the hs all on high alert, basically warning businesses that there could be some cyber threats still emanating from russia including an attack on u.s. banks and also the grilled. and senate intel committee chair mark warner this morning warning u.s. businesses saying russia is fighting a kinetic and cyber war, i encourage americans to strengthen their cyber defenses in light of the possibility of disruption. neilsome. neil: thank you, hillary. to connell mcshane, little income in hillary's report, this notion that maybe they will not include in the list of sanctions the president is considering any, any move on swift. it must be, apparently, a lot tougher to do than maybe the

president had gauged. but for the market, that could be a development. what do you think? >> reporter: it could be a positive development for stocks. you know, we'll see. you know, as you know, neil, trying to put something like that in place, essentially cutting russia off from the global system of finance would be complicated. there have been reports that suggest that boris johnson and the u.k. may be in favor of it, but the german chancellor may not be. so there's more in there than just president biden. the dow was down 800 plus earlier, now down, as you see, 600 and change, and is so that's been the interesting thing, all these fluctuations. the nasdaq 3% lower, then higher, now it's lower. it's more of a financial hit in europe no matter what happens from here on out. german dax down by 4 president. that's -- 4%. that's where your exposure is. we've been watching bonds as well, one of many examples of a flight to qualitied today or to

safety, i suppose, and yields have been moving lower on 10-year treasuries. as you mentioned a few minutes ago. we're a little lower, we'll see how much lower we go from there. and, you know, currencies, again, flight to quality. dollar's been strong, the russian ruble against the that are was at an all-time low and ore currencies moving lower. that's your flight to safety trade. the other thing, if you look at commodities, obviously, oil is something people folks on. it's been up -- focus on. brent crude's been well over $100, the european market. natural gas, for example, so big particularly in germany and in other places in europe. we looked at wheat futures, corn futures, both russia and ukraine are major grain producers, so we've seen multiyear highs in both of those moldties. so while we wait for the president to come out here, it's not only swift, it's how tough is president biden and the rest of the west on energy and what

does that mean for commodity prices, u.s. energy companies and the like. we might get a better idea here in 20 minutes or whenever the president comes out. we've already been dealing with inflation, higher gas prices. that at least for the time being is here to stay. most of the energy stocks are lower today. chesapeake being the one exception to the rule m if neil? neil: thank you very much, connell mcshane. guys, can we go to justin trudeau? i believe -- i apologize -- the canadian prime minister is speaking right now. he's just with enacted financial sweeping actions to target some 62 individuals. there's a pattern to this. we're still waiting to hear from our own president. let's dip into trudeau. >> -- we will impose severe costs on complicit russian elites, and it will limit president putin's ability to continue funding this justified invasion -- unjustified invasion. [speaking french]

>> translator: russia's reckless and dangerous -- [inaudible] we are enacting further severe sanctions. these sanctions are -- neil: all right. we've been listening very briefly, i know there was a translation for the french side of this which you have to do in canada, i understand, he's very fluent in both language ares. the bottom line is whether you're reading english or the french version, it's yet another way a major western power is trying to stick it to vladimir putin, this time going after the so-called oligarchs. you hear about them. by the way, vladimir putin's an oligarch. some people say the world's richest man. let's just say billions of dollars, some say, tucked away all over the place. he's among 62 individuals, entities, financial firms that would be targeted by this, by making it very difficult for them to do business. so, again, that is kind of the pattern we're seeing. the president will sort of put, you know, the cherry on the cake here and say, all right, this is

what we are collectively doing and maybe they're all holding back to let the president say maybe the more sweeping measures. but again, some of these were widely rumored to be the situation anyway. you heard from boris johnson, we've heard from emmanuel macron. now hearing from justin justin trudeau in canada. the pattern is go after the money, follow the money, make it very, very difficult for vladimir putin and his rich buddies, and by extension, russia in general, to get money. but, again, that is an early realize on things. we'll hear from the president, we're told, in about 20 minutes, but that's been delayed many times. dennis blair is joining us now, former u.s. national intelligence director under president barack obama. admiral, very good to have you. what is your sense about what is next? >> well, neil, i think we need to think about the basics of what's going on here amidst

froth of in this announcement or that announcement. you saw at the olympic games president xi, president putin in almost a gloating mood and put out a manifesto which basically challenges the entire democratic, liberal, american, western-led order of things, and we're in for a long-term challenge here. and three of the important areas that we have to deal with are the energy sector which russia is deeply entwined in, the industrial sector in which we face a big challenge from china and, of course, the transportation sector which knits those two together. so we need to think all of those things through and come out of this crisis in a stronger position with a plan to be able to handle that challenge in the future. so that's really what is important here. neil: yeah. and we don't know where that's

going. by the way, for those at home, we were briefly showing robert charles. he's going to be a special guest of mine, former assistant secretary of state. but, admiral, let me get a sense of if we, if we haven't had much success with the sanctions already announced -- and you're a great, you know, student of history as well -- we appear in the past not to have had much success with sanctions against even vladimir putin in 2014 that went into effect in a follow-up series of sanctions after that, that bad guys who do bad things tend to, you know, not to suffer too badly financially as a result. i don't know why that is or whether this is going to move the needle or change behavior on the part of vladimir putin. what do you think? >> it has to do with among, certainly, among the major countries and even among some of the smaller countries like iraq

and iran our international economic relations with them have been quite intertwined, and it's hard to find a sanction which you can apply with the intensity to really hurt another country without hurting your own economy as well unless you've taken some careful precoughs well ahead of time -- precautions well ahead of time, not in the last minute. and that's the problem right now. why is germany so flimsy-footed here? it's because they depend on russia for 70% or so of their, of their energy. why is the united states ruling out sanctioning russian oil and gas shipments which apply, which provide 30% of their gdp which have allowed them to build up a huge more than half a trillion dollar reserve fund so that they can weather some of these sanctions? why? because for the last 20 years we haven't taught in -- thought in

those terms. germany hasn't developed the lng infrastructure that other countries in europe have, the baltic states in particular, poland and others. so they remain vulnerable. and the united states, we main really a monoculture in our transportation sector with 92% of transportation fuel dependent on petroleum which is an internationally-traded commodity. russia supplies as much as the united states does, and if we sanction russian supplies, we inflict heavy economic penalty on ourselves and our partners. so we've got to work on these long-term national security, economic security arrangements so that we can apply sanctions that don't hurt us as much as they hurt the people that we're replenishing, and we just haven't done that yet. neil: yeah. it seems like we're fighting back but almost, you know, not fighting as strong arely as we can. -- strongly as we can.

there might be reasons that go beyond my knowledge, but, admiral, i am wondering whatever pain we try to inflect or threats we've made, vladimir putin is still doing all of this. and he knows now he has pretty much ostracized himself with the world. maybe he remembers back in 2012, you know, 2014, the world felt the same. and i'm wondering whether he says, a ah, they'll get over it or i'll do this, and as long as i don't go nuts, i'll kind of leave it at that, and they'll get over this. what do you think? >> well, that's what he's found, of course, in his chopping off pieces of georgia and his invasion of, invasion of, takeover of the crimea eight years ago. he's -- and the chinese, of course, have the same sort of approach with whatever they do, what they did in tiananmen square back in '89, taking over hong kong, the treatment of the uighurs. their idea is that the west will continue to deal with us because

they have to. they'll get over it. the business community will put pressure on their governments, and we'll be, and we'll be okay. and if we simply -- you know, i know fox is a good, strong free market supporter -- [laughter] but when it comes to national security, we've got to take smart government actions so that we are not exposed by our short-term pursuit of market opportunities to these sorts of pressures which hamstring us and why i'm involved in it as a former military officer is that we don't always revert to the gun, right? if we can't accomplish things with economic sanctions, with diplomacy, with pulling together our allies, with punishing our adversaries, then we reach for the armed forces. and we've got -- we just need to be a lot smarter because we are in this long-term, heavy competition with these two authoritarian regimes who think of an entirely different future from what we have. and we, we're late in the game

with russia because of energy, but we have time with china to disentangle our supply chains for particularly transportation sector, batteries, rare earths that are important in automobiles, and we can keep from having this interdependence with china which will play to our disadvantage if china makes aggressive moves. we've got to be smart on this stuff, neil. neil: all right. i think even free market sporters, admiral, would agree with you -- supporters -- that the free market doesn't mean take advantage of that, leverage a off of that. we'll hear from the president what he has to say but, admiral, very, very good having you with. thank you for taking the time. we do have robert charles, the former bush 43 assistant secretary of state, what he makes of the pressure vladimir putin seems to be under. he's coming up. we also have the latest right now in lviv, ukraine, a different read from motion that

everything is focused on the capital. fact of the matter is, is that this is a fairly wide-spring and getting to be a wider targeted attack that the russians have orchestrated here. and they're trying to do limited damage. we're told right now that that vladimir putin himself is a student of history and how soviet union botched its invasion of afghanistan, body bags of russian soldiers returning to the motherland and the pressure there was akin to the pressure of president johnson and later other presidents faced as a result of the vietnam war, pretty much what vladimir putin has concluded is i don't want that right now. the dow down 627 points right now. a flight to quality in bonds, certainly a flight to quality in gold. it's all over the map which is historic and right now still scary. stay with us, you are watching fox business. ♪ if

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neil: all right, 24 minutes after the hour, the kiese ohs -- east coast of the united states. we're waiting for the president of the united states, what he is going to do when it comes to slapping more sanctions on russia, vladimir putin personally too, we're told. an interesting report from politico has it that russia need not worry about it energy if sector getting too targeted here, that two people familiar with the plans including a senior official of the administration, says that the russian unite raz net is not set to be a target. if another person says the focus of the sanctions will be on financial institutions, but that's a big deal. if you're not punishing the big moneymaker for russia -- that is, the, you know, the energy giants -- you know, that's their currency. energy is their currency. one of the premier players there. now, again, it's only a pretty politico -- politico report. we are watching that.

that would be deemed a disappointment and maybe another one if we do not include yanking the russians out of swift, this international banking system, that effectively allows countries to do commerce with one another. you've heard a lot about that, and it does get in the weeds. let me cut to the chase here. you take them out of that, you make it impossible, next to impossible, for them to make money. so that's a good goal if you want to bring vladimir putin to his knees here. but, again, nothing seems to dissuade this guy. so we'll see. evidence of that is this invasion today. let's go to kyiv, ukraine, right now where you'll find our trey yingst. trey, how are things looking there? >> reporter: neil, good afternoon. things are not looking very good here at all. two major developments, both of them extremely concerning for the ukrainian people. according to a source in the office of the president here many kyiv, we -- in kyiv, we understand the chernobyl region where the meltdown happened in the 1980 is currently under the

control of russian forces. there was a fierce battle this afternoon and, ultimately, the ukrainians were defeated. this now gives those russian troops who crossed over from belarus a direct path to the capital of kyiv. now, even closer to the ukrainian capital is an air base just about a 45-minute drive from here, also another major battle took place there today. there were an estimated 20 russian attack helicopters that targeted in this air base. ultimately, the ukrainians tried their hardest to maintain the control of this base but, ultimately, they were also defeated there. so you have two directions that these russian forces could target the capital. and western intelligence analysts believe that could take place in the coming days. this is where we're at right now, and we do expect these numbers to rise, but according to the ukrainian defense ministry at least 40 ukrainian soldiers were killed in this initial overmight blitz by the russians shah included both

ground and air assaults. we do expect that number to rise, also a number of civilians who were killed among this offensive launched by russia overnight. neil? neil: trey yingst, thank you very much, my friend. to robert charles, the former bush assistant secretary of state. secretary, it's always good having you. what do you make of how this is, you know, how this is going? and if you're vladimir putin, whether it's going to plan. there's so much we don't know, but the fact that he pulled the trigger, quite literally here, regardless of all these threats and future financial sanctions to come, what do you make of it all? >> well, there are always, neil, more uncertainties when you go to war than there are certainties, but i would just say i see sort of three or four broad implications. the first is territorial, the second the economic, the third is diplomatic and the fourth is sort of an opening chapter, an opening -- [audio difficulty]

of ideas which really goes back to that china-russia pact. in terms of territorial, we don't know how extended is this engagement going to be. is this 1938, you know, the beginning of an enormous conflict which engages all of europe in some way another whether it's cyber, economic, kinetic, or is this just a limited effort as mr. putin seems to be trying to tell the world even as he uses his other hand to throw the punch that now this is just about ukraine. remember, kyiv was not part of the original incursion that they had a couple years ago. so this is quite an extension all by itself, and it'll probably go on for weeks. the second piece is economic. and people are not remembering, i did agree with the admiral just before here, but what people are not remembering is that europe right now gets about 30% of their oil and about 40% of their natural gas from russia. it's a, it's very easy, in fact, there are early rumored reports that they're already beginning to turn energy if off at times

for pieces of europe. if you throw sanctions on oil sector, you will get a counter set of sanctions that punish western europe and the rest of eastern europe. so the economic, you know, this is like two people locked in a death fight because, ultimately, if we are too tough on them, it will hurt western europe. and, by the way, that goes to swift too. it has a boomerang effect. the third piece is failed diplomacy. i mean, this is obviously another biden failure of diplomacy. and i say that, you know, with afghanistan in the rearview mirror. you know, this, to me, seems like feeding chum to sharks where at first it seems fun, and then it gets more dangerous. and the last thing is we've got this china-russia pact and there seems to be a battle whether democracy and freedom really matter. maybe this is the opening scene of a pretty long play. neil: wild. robert, you laid it outery nicely. we're waiting for the president of the united states. robert charles, served in the

bush administration. by the way, to robert's point about how much this could booker rang and hurt europe -- boomerang, we forget not only do they depend on so much of that russian oil, but about 70% of their natural gas from russia. so you take russia out of the equation, you could well understand why natural gas prices that trade in europe -- this is the natural gas that europe uses -- they're up 30% today. so it trades like a commodity there much like it does in the united states. natural gas prices here up about 5-6%. over there given the disproportionate dependence the europeans have on russian natural gas to say nothing of oil, up in excess of 30%. that's wild. so kind of interesting how it plays out and the pressure of applying sanctions on russia that hurt the very people as well who are putting them on. so we'll see what's going on there. now to bill hemmer who's following developments very, very closely in ukraine.

bill, how does it look there? >> neil, good to be back with you and thank you. good afternoon to you. this was as of 7:30 this morning, everything you see on the map here with a red dot, that's where we believe a strike on behalf of the russian ill military took place. about 7:30 our time here, this is 9:00 our time. you see how this changes. we go to 11:30 local time for us, two hours ago in new york, and the map just starts to populate. here's what we're hearing, neil. kyiv's the capital city, and there's an air base about 45 minutes outside the capital, and there was heavy fighting at this air base with the russian military coming in with numerous helicopters, etc. and that is the situation right now that is still unfolding. up here to the north, this is chernobyl, okay? just south of the border with belarus you had that nuclear accident there in april of 1986. the russian military apparently wanted to go right through that area, and there was heavy fighting there as well. we're getting reports from greg

palkot out of london that six bridges have been knocked out just in that chernobyl area. the russians are saying they've taken control of that. we can't confirm that, we don't know. but that's another hotbed area as well. when we came to work earlier told, we knew kyiv, a city of about 3 million, had taken a heavy bombardment just before day break earlier today, and out here to the east kharkiv at well -- as well, a city of 1.5 million. the russian tanks had moved across that line, and there was resistance put up by the ukrainian military. how good and how stiff it was is not clear, but there is some -- there's already some video evidence and picture ed online that tuck see where russian tanks and military equipment have been stopped in the middle of the street literally, they were put down and unable to move forward. donetsk, mean pro in the center part of the country and odesa, these are substantial cities in ukraine that are coming under fire on behalf of the russian

military -- dnipro. phase one, that's what they say, how long does it last? a senior defense department official says they don't know. but phase one is a military operation to try and seize control of the air bases, knock out all the air defense systems on behalf of the ukrainian military and then really move more the troops in either by airplane or by road to take control of ukraine, the country, and knock the government off its stoop. quick little history lesson here, neil. we were looking at this. this is the soviet union as it was in late 1989 when putin was stationed in east berlin. he packed his bags, went home to moscow. remember he said that was the worst day of his life. since that time, earlier 1990s, all these countries here -- kazahkstan, armenia, georgia, ukraine, belarus --

they had separated from the former soviet union with the exception of this right here. tease are your nato countries. not all of them are listed here, neil if, but these are the nato countries that border on russia's western side and over here in eastern turkey what footen's been saying is ukraine's a problem because you're telling me that nato's going to be -- ukraine, rather, is going to be a part of nato. he doesn't want that, right? that's been his big beef. but, neil, ask yourself, why did all these former eastern bloc countries in europe want to get away from the ussr, want to get away from soviet russia? why did they join nato? they did not want to fall under the influence of that government and vladimir putin. you're seeing how putin is trying to make more -- put more land between his board9 and the rest of nato here. i mentioned phase one, i'll just quickly go through this.

what we're hearing is that belarus gave the permission for the russian military to go ahead and set up camp there the past 06 days. -- 60 days. they've established multiple military installation, and belarus, always friendly with the moscow government, has given them permission to do that. according to senior defense officials, it's almost like they're going to the west side of kyiv and the east side as well. i mentioned chernobyl, that's right about here. so they're really going at the capital from two different fronts from the north. also from the northeast as well and from the south down here in crimea. so it's a three-pronged front trying to pinch the country of ukraine now. and you remember crimea down here, this is what the russians took in 2008 and also the donbas region too when they made that first invasion. 2014, check that, eight years ago, the first invasion then has been followed up by what we have

watched last night. i don't know how long, neil, the ukrainian military can hold out. it's unclear how long zelenskyy can hold on to power, but that's what we're watching right now and what is considered phase one of this invasion of ukraine eight years later, neil. neil: that, you know, bill, is amazing. what i really like there is you showing, you know, the old soviet union before its collapse, it was a much bigger place -- >> yes. neil: and you look at all those breakaway republics, it does bring up a reminder here why would vladimir putin be satisfied with just ukraine? >> okay. fair question. go back to the map. you know what i think about when you raise that question, or neil? i think about up here in the baltics, i think about latvia, lithuania and estonia. i'm not saying they're a target for putin. he took 70% of his army and he surrounded the country of ukraine. but would he in the future look at countries like these up here that can barely defend themselves? i think that's a debate we're

going to be hearing a lot more about in the coming days, neil. neil: that is absolutely wild. bill, you're the best. thank you, my friend, very, very much. bill hemmer following all of that. we should indicate, too, that, you know, ukraine is a big country as we wait to hear from the president of the united states. about 45 million people, 35th of some 200 countries in the world. this isn't like running over luxembourg or something like that. it is a big and powerful country, maybe certainly not compared to russia, but this is not necessarily a slam dunk in that sense. let's go to jennifer griffin at the pentagon, what we might be hearing out of of the administration. jennifer. >> reporter: well, neil, u.s. intelligence officials have told us in recent weeks that they believe that the russian military can take kyiv in approximately 48 hours. that's two days. and what we are seeing unfold is them encircling the capital, moving on the capital. and, basically, what we're saying is that it's very clear

that russian forces are heading straight to the capital of kyiv as we speak. a senior u.s. defense official told reporters not long ago they have every intention of decapitating the government and installing their own government in kyiv. one of the most important indicators, an air base, a cargo airport 45 minutes outside the center of kyiv which greg palkot has been reporting was the scene of a russian airborne attack earlier today. as many as 20 russian helicopters took a participant in the assault -- part in the assault. that is significant because now there are reportedly 18 russian cargo planes allegedly filled with russian troops headed to that air base just outsidekey. a veiled threat from putin last night to nato. here's what he said. [speaking russian] >> translator: for those who could be tempted to intervene from outside, whoever tries to hinder us and even more so to

create threats to our country, to our people should know that russia's response will be immediate and it will lead you to such consequences that you have never encountered in your history. >> reporter: some military experts have said that putin was using nuclear weapons as a veiled threat to nato. right now the pentagon says they have no evidence that those nuclear weapons, russia's nuclear weapons have changed that their alert status or have changed any sort of positioning. now, more than 100 ballistic missiles, russian ballistic missiles, were launched into ukraine overnight according to the pentagon. overnight if russia advanced on three main ax access of assault as bill described. from the south they moved north, they are moving up that line toward the meaner river where most of -- dnieper river where most of ukraine's forces are positioned. from the north, from belarus, again, those two axes moving

towards kyiv northwest and knot northeast of the city, that's why you've seen chernobyl, and third, the heaviest fighting in the east up towards or the north, kharkiv is the second largest city in ukraine with 2.5 million people. that would be enroute from russia, from belgrade down to the meaner, and what you're going to see is a development occurring by the russian military to try and cut off ukraine's military forces from the rest of the country. that move on kharkiv included, we're told, an air insertion is of russian forces there. more than 100 ballistic missiles, as i mentioned, were launched overnight from russia. 75 fixed-wing russian aircraft have been involved in the assault overnight according to a senior u.s. defense official. targets so far include, as you would expect, air defense systems, barracks, ammo depots and ten airfields were taken by

the russians, we're told. there are no indications as of yet of an amphibious assault even though russia has all those warships, more than a dozen, in the black sea. no russian troops have landed in odesa, for instance, according to ukraine's defense minister. public means of communication still active. that was something we expected to go bark dark in the initial hours. that did not happen. the full scope of electronic warfare, we're told from a senior u.s. defense official, has not been employed by russian forces, but it could be in the coming hours. that fighting at chernobyl has been intense as bill was reporting and as greg palkot has reported. they are now, again, clearing a path for tanks to move south to kyiv. cannot confirm that a nuclear way sub has been targeted or hit. those were early reports and concerns expressed by president zelenskyy. neil? neil: we're about a minute away

from the president right now, jennifer. what do your sources say they want to hear out of himsome -- him? >> reporter: do you mean my military sources? neil: yeah. when they speak quietly, don't hold to one allee allegiance -- allegiance to one party. >> reporter: well, look, the military has been closely aligned with the national security response. president biden has been leading, leaning on his defense secretary9 and the chairman of the joint chiefs, mark milley. there's no sense that i have that there's any daylight between the military and the white house, unlike during the after afghan -- afghan pullout. neil: all right, got it. the president of the united states. >> good afternoon. the russian military's begun a brutal assault on the people of ukraine without provocation, without justification, without necessity. this is a premeditated attack. vladimir putin has been planning this for months as we've been

saying all along. he moved more than 175,000 troops, military equipment to positions along the ukrainian border. he moved blood supplies into position and built up field hospitals which tells you all you need to know about his intentions all along. if he rejected every good faith effort the united states and our allies and partners made to address our mutual security concerns through dialogue to avoid needless conflict and avert human suffering. for weeks, for weeks we have been warning that this would happen. and and now it's unfolding largely as we predicted. in the past week, we've seen shelling increase in the donbas, a region in eastern ukraine controlled by russian-backed separatists. the russian government has perpetrated cyber attacks against ukraine. we saw a staged political theater in moscow, outlandish and baseless claims that ukraine

was -- ukraine was about to invade and launch a war against russia. that ukraine was prepared to use chemical weapons, ukraine committed a genocide. without any evidence. you saw a flagrant violation of international law in attempting to unilaterally create two new so-called republics on sovereign ukrainian territory. and at the very moment that the united nations security council is meeting to stand up for ukraine's sovereignty to stave the off invasion, putin declared his war. within moments, moments missile strikes began to start falling, then came the air raids followed by tanks and troops rolling in. we've been transparent with the world, we've shared declassified evidence about russia's plans and cyber attacks and false pretexts so that there could be

no confusion or cover-up about what putin is doing. putin is the aggressor. putin chose this war. and now he and his country will bear the consequences. today i'm authorizing additional strong sanctions and new limitations on what can be exported to russia. this is going to impose severe cost on the russian economy both immediately and over time. we have purposefully designed these sanctions to maximize the long-term impact on russia and to minimize the impact on the united states and our allies. and i want to be clear, the united states is not doing this alone. for months we have been building a coalition of partners representing well more than half the global economy. 27 members of the european union including france, germany, italy as well as the united kingdom, canada, japan, australia, new zealand and many others to

amplify the joint impact of our response. i just spoke with the g7 leaders this morning, and we're in full and total the agreement -- total agreement. we will limit russia's ability to do business in dollars, euros, pounds and yen to be part of the global economy. we'll limit their ability to do that. we're going to stunt the ability to finance and grow the russian military. we're going to impose major -- and we're going to impair their ability to compete in high-tech 21st century economy. we've already seen the impact of our actions on russia's currency and the ruble which early today hit its weakest level ever, ever in history m -- history. the russian stock market plunged today. the russian government -- spiked by over 15%. and today's actions we've now sanctioned russian banks that together hold around $1 trillion in assets. we've cut off russia's largest

bank, a bank that holds more than one-third of russia shah's banking assets by itself, cut it off from the u.s. financial system. and today we're also blocking four more major banks. that means every asset they have in america will be frozen. this includes vtb, the second largest bank in russia which has $250 billion in assets. as promised, we're also adding the names of the list of russian elites and their family members that are sanctioning, that we're sanctioning as well. as i said on tuesday, these are people who personally gain from the kremlin's policies, and they should share in the pain. we will keep up this drum beat of those designations against corrupt billionaires in the days ahead. on tuesday we stopped the russian government from raising money from u.s. or european investors. now we're going to apply the same restrictions to russia's largest state-owned enterprises,

companies with assets that exceed $1.4 trillion. some of the most powerful impacts of our actions will come over time as we squeeze russia's access to finance and technology, for strategic sectors of its economy and the great -- degrade its industrial capacity for years to come. between our actions and those of our allies and partners, we estimate we'll cut off more than half of russia's high-tech imports. we'll strike a blow through their ability to continue to modernize their military. it'll degrade their aerospace industry including their spate program. it'll hurt their ability to build ships, reducing their ability to compete economically, and it'll be a major hit to putin's long-term strategic ambitions. and we're preparing to do more. in addition to the economic penalties we're imposing, we're also taking steps to defend our nato allies, particularly in the east. tomorrow nato will convene a

summit, and we'll be there, or to bring together the leaders of 30 allied nations and close partners to affirm our solidarity and to map out the next steps we will take to further strengthen all aspects of our nato alliance. although we've provided over $650 million in defensive assistance to ukraine this year, last year -- let me say it again, our forces are not and will not be engaged in a conflict with russia in ukraine. our forces are not going to europe to fight in ukraine, but to defend our nato allies and reassure those allies in the east. as i made crystal clear, the united states will defend every inch of nato territory with the full force of american power. and the good news is nato is more united and more determined than ever. there's no doubt, no doubt that the united states and every nato

ally are meet our article v commitments which says an attack on one is an attack on all. over the past few weeks, i've ordered thousands of additional forces to germany and poland as part of our commitment to nato. on tuesday, in response to russia's aggressive action including its troop presence in belarus and the black sea, i've authorized the deployment of ground and air forces already stationed in europe to nato's eastern flank allies, estonia, latvia, lithuania, poland and romania. our allies have also been stepping up adding the other allies, the rest of nato, adding their own forces and capabilities to insure corrective -- collective defense. and today, within hours of russia's unleashing its ate salt, nato authority z -- authorized a response plan. this'll enable high-readiness forces to deploy and when and where with they're needed to

protect our nato allies on the eastern boundaries of europe. and now i'm authorizing additional u.s. force capabilities to deploy to germany as part of nato's response including some of the u.s.-based forces that the department of defense placed on standby weeks ago. i've also spoke with defense secretary austin and chairman of the joint chiefs general milley about preparations for additional moves should they become necessary to protect our nato allies and support the greatest military alliance in the history of the world, nato. as we respond, my administration is using the tools, every tool at its disposal to protect american families and businesses from rising prices at the gas pump. you know, we're taking active steps to bring down the cost, and american oil and gas companies should not, should not exploit this moment to hike their prices to raise profits. you know, in our sanctions package we specifically designed to allow energy payments to

continue. we are closely monitoring energy supplies for any disruption. we've been coordinating with major oil-producing and consuming countries toward our common interest to secure global energy supplies. we are actively working with countries around the world to elevate collective release from the strategic petroleum reserves of major energy-consuming countries. and the united states will release additional barrels of oil as conditions warrant. i know this is hard and that americans are already hurting. i do everything in my power to limit the pain the american people are feeling at the gas pump. this is critical to me. but this aggression cannot go unanswered. if it did, the consequences for america would be much worse. america stands up to bully ares, we stand up for freedom. this is who we are. let me also repeat the warning i made last week. if russia pursues cyber attacks

against our companies, our critical infrastructure, we are prepared to respond. for months we've been working closely with the private sector to harden their sign iser defenses, sharpen our ability to respond to russian cyber attacks as well. i spoke last night to president zelenskyy of ukraine, and i assured him that the united states, together with our allies and partners in europe, will support the ukrainian people as they defend their country. we'll provide humanitarian relief to ease their suffering, and in the early days of this conflict if, russia propaganda outlets will keep trying to hide the truth and claim success for its military operation against a made-up threat. but history has shown time and again how swift gains in territory eventually give way to grinding occupations. acts of mass civil disobedience and strategic dead ends. the next few weeks and months

will be hard on the people of ukraine. putin has unleashed a great pain on them. but the ukrainian people have known 30 years of independence, and they've repeatly shown that they will not tolerate anyone who tries to take their country backwards. this is a dangerous moment for all of europe, for the freedom around the world. putin has committed an assault on the very principles that uphold the global peace. now the entire world sees clearly what putin and his kremlin allies are really all about. this was never about a genuine security concern on their part. it was always about naked aggression. about putin's desire for empire by any means necessary, by bullying russia's neighbors through coercion and corruption, by changing borders by force and, ultimately, by choosing a war without a cause. putin's actions betray his

sinner is vision -- sinister vision for the future of our world. it is a vision that the united states and freedom-loving nations everywhere will oppose will every tool of of our considerable power. the united states and our allies and partners will emerge from this stronger, more united, more determined and more purposeful. putin's aggression against ukraine will end up costing russia dearly economically and strategically. we will make sure of that. putin will be a pariah on the international stage. any nation that will be stained by association. the history of this era is written, putin's choice to make a totally unjustifiable war on ukraine will have left russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger. liberty, democracy, human dignity, these are the forces

far more powerful than fear and oppression. they cannot be extinguished by tyrants like putin and his armies. they cannot be erased by people, from people's hearts and hopes by any amount of violence and intimidation. they endure. in the contest between democracy and autocracy, between sovereignty and subjugation, make no mistake, freedom will prevail. god bless the people of a free and democratic ukraine, and may god protect our troops. [inaudible conversations] >> associated press, zeke. >> do you have any plans to speak with president putin at point, and -- [inaudible] on the russian government. >> i heard the first part, do i have plans to speak with putin at this point, and what? >> [inaudible] military -- [inaudible]

does not spiral into a larger conflict. >> the way we're going to assure it's not a larger conflict is by providing all the forces needed in the eastern european nations that are members of nato. nato is more united than it's ever been, and i have no plans to talk with putin. [inaudible conversations] "wall street journal". >> mr. president, you didn't mention swift in your sanctions, but you -- that you announced. is there a reason why the u.s. isn't doing that? is there disagreement among allies regarding swift and whether >> the sanctions that we've proposed on all their banks are of equal consequence maybe more consequence in swift number one. number two, it is always an option, but right now, that's not the position that the rest of europe wishes to take. cecelia vaga, abc.

reporter: sir, sanctions clearly have not been enough to deter vladimir putin to this point. what is going to stop him? how and when does this end, and do you see him trying to go beyond ukraine and a second question, i'll just give to you now. the statement that he gave last night that the threat that he gave the west will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history, is he threatening a nuclear strike? >> i have no idea what he's threat threatening. i know what he's done, number one. number two, no one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening. this time, we have to show, so he knows what's coming, and so the people of russia know what he's brought on them. that's what this is all about. this is going to take time. it's not going to occur, he's going to say my god these sanctions are coming i'm going to stand down. he's going to test the resolve of the west to see if we stay together, and we will.

we will, and we'll impose significant costs on him. reporter: will he go beyond ukraine, sir? >> yes. >> thank you. two topics, just really quick. first, markets are down, and gas prices are up. i know you always stress the difference between wall street and main street but everybody seems to be in economic pain. how economically painful is it going to get for people in this country? and i do have one more question. >> first of all, there's no doubt that when a major nuclear power attacks and invades another country that the world is going to respond, and markets can respond all over the world, so there's no doubt about that number one. number two, the notion that this is going to last for a long time is highly unlikely as long as we continue to stay resolve and imposing the sanctions we're going to impose on russia,