>> russia calling for this meeting as a potential false flag effort in action, exactly the kind we have been warning about, including from secretary blinken here in the security council last month. russia has a track record of falsely accusing other countries of the very violations that russia itself is perpetrating. and given that and consistent with our previous statements, we have serious concerns that russia may be planning to use chemical or biological agents against the ukrainian people. anchor: ukraine says russian soldiers have kidnapped the mayor of a city in the southeast. this footage was released,

showing what they say was the abduction. they say 10 soldiers entered the crisis center. thank you sanctioned politicians for threatening to her recognizing to separatist region's. those blacklisted are banned from traveling to the u.k. it will stop them accessing from any u.k. businesses in the country. metta, the company that owns facebook and instagram, could soon be banned in russia as an extremist organization. the move is in response to facebook announcing it is relaxing its rules on a call to violence. it is now a partial exception when the target is russian troops in ukraine. those are the headlines. the news continues here on al jazeera after "inside story."

♪ hazem: hello, welcome to the program. i am hazem sika. it has been more than two weeks since russia launched its invasion in ukraine. eu leaders have been meeting in france to discuss ways to help ukrainian further punish russia,

but that has not stopped the kremlin from fighting back. the kremlin has imposed a ban on exports this year. russia is already facing the most severe set of western sanctions ever imposed on a single country. they target a variety of sectors, including oil, banking, aviation, and people close to president putin. >> this is a defining moment for europe and it is a moment where we see that putin's war is also a question of the resilience of democracies. we will rethink energy. we have to get rid of the dependency of russian fossil fuels. and for that, we need massive investment in renewables. this is also strategic investment in our security and our independence. hazem: russian president vladimir putin says his country will emerge stronger and more independent from western sanctions, which he said were

inevitable. >> the pressure of sanctions is always existed. today, it is of a more complicated nature and is posing certain questions, problems, and difficulties on us. but we will overcome them now, just like we have overcome problems in previous years. at the end of the day, all of this will lead to the increase of our independence, autonomy, and sovereignty. hazem: let's take a look at the growing number of international companies that have pulled out of russia. mcdonald's, coca-cola, and starbucks are among the latest corporations suspending operations after russia's invasion of ukraine. germany's volkswagen and japan's toyota halted production in russia indefinitely. several tech firms have closed up shop, including software companies microsoft and a s.a.p. fashion brands h&m and zara have also joined the corporate exodus.

let's bring in our guests now. joining us from london, chris weafer, chief executive officer at macro-advisory, a strategic consultancy focused on russia and eurasia. in oslo, glenn diesen, professor of international relations at the university of south-eastern norway. and also in london, tom burgis, author of the sunday times best-selling book "kleptopia: how dirty money is conquering the world." good to have you all with us, gentlemen. chris weafer, let me start with you. are these sanctions as they currently stand working? chris: they are starting to have an impact for sure. let me say up front that the sanctions, although very severe, are not likely to lead to a financial collapse, or even an economic collapse, as may be have seen previously, and that is because russia has been living under a sanctions regime, which has been tightening ever since 2014. so the economy to some extent

has built in some resilience to sanctions, but not of course to the extent we are now seeing. we are starting to see some companies laying off staff because they cannot get spare parts because of the trade embargo. we are starting to see high-profile brands like ikea, mcdonald's, and others at least temporarily closing their business in russia, which is leading to layoffs and a shortage of goods. we are starting to see this creeping impact on the economy. but as they say in terms of financial stability, our overall microeconomic stability, that is not yet at risk and won't be so long as russia is able to continue exporting key products such as gas or industrial materials, and is able to be paid for it. in that sense, no collapse, but clearly a deteriorating situation. hazem: tom burgis, what is your take on how effective these

sanctions are? what the overall effect of them is? tom: we have to rake them into two parts. there is the sectoral attack on russian exports like oil and gas, trade embargoes, the things chris was talking about a moment ago. then there are the targeted sanctions, which are subtler and harder to read. these are the attacks on the personal wealth of those who have prospered under putin's kleptocracy for many years. they are being touted as a way to put pressure on him. i would offer a note of skepticism with those as well. i would say the two categories of oligarchs, the 1990's oligarchs who got rich in privatizations and had their wings clipped by putin and were made dependent on him but maintain relations with him, they i think have limited influence on his decision-making. then there's the kind of putin-era oligarchs, who a lot

of them have like him past in the kgb, were in some cases plucked from obscurity and created by putin. they have a much greater dependency on him. they are also barons of state companies generally, oil and gas pipelines, as opposed to private ones. but if the aim of the sanctions is to ultimately persuade the richest beneficiaries of russia's kleptocracy that they need a new boss at the top because putin's policies are proving too ruinous for their wealth, you have to question that logic as well because so many of them are so bound up with him that, typically in my experience covering kleptocracy's all over the world, when the big man goes down, those close to him go down with him. you have to wonder, to what extent they would see it in their interest to try to remove putin at any stage. hazem: we can certainly talk more about that a little bit later. this is related to britain's decision to put several russian

oligarchs on their sanctions list because many of them have a lot of their money in u.k. banks. we will talk a little bit more in a moment. but i want to turn to glenn diesen and get his take on the sanctions overall. the history of sanctions, as far as having the desired effect of getting the people that they are targeting to change their position or get them to back down, is not a great one. it is checkered at best. do you expect this to be any different? glenn: this is the problem of sanctions. they are put into place because politicians feel they have to do something, and it is either economic pressure or military pressure. but sometimes, doing something does not necessarily mean anything is achieved. when we ask whether or not the sanctions are working, if they are successful, it depends on what we consider the purpose of the sanctions to be. if it is to weaken the russian economy, i would say yes,

sanctions are working. if it is to decouple russia from the european economies, it is also working. however, one would have to point out that since 2014 russia is working towards reorienting its economy from the west toward the east, mainly china, and this will only intensify the process. typically when we talk about sanctions, the purpose is to make them change their policy. we are influencing the cost benefit of russian actions. in order to assess the extent to which sanctions will be effective, we have to say, what are russia's motivations? ultimately, we get it very wrong. one gets the impression from the media that putin woke up one day in a bad mood and decided to conquer some new territory. i think it is important to see the russian perspective on this, and that is that after nato expands, russia says this is a threat to their security. they have made clear that

ukraine's absorption into nato is an existential threat. in other words, this is a redline and they will effectively risk everything for this. it is all or nothing. it is a little bit like the united states willing to obliterate cuba in order to get the soviets out. i think it is important to understand this because if russia sees this as a defensive war, getting nato away from their borders, they cannot retreat. what would happen if russia would go back today with the mood we have in the last? nato would move in with weapons and everything else into ukraine fairly quickly. again, this is something that det -- this is something that russia cannot do. they will not back down because this is an existential threat, a redline. i don't see any future for the sanctions. i think if they want change, you

have to talk about security arrangements with russia. hazem: chris weafer, putin has said that russia is strong enough to withstand sanctions and this will end up hurting the west in the form of higher food and energy prices. is he right? chris: we can already see that. the price of key commodities, energy, but also other commodities that russia imports, for example wheat. all of these prices are rising, so it is putting inflationary pressure on the global economy, therefore that will affect monetary policies and will affect the global economy. he is right in that respect. but to what extent they can withstand the pain is an open question. russia has made a lot of preparations to be more resilient against sanctions. for example, if we go back to 2013, russia was entirely

dependent on oil prices, one hundred $15 to balance the budget. back then, russia imported 50% of its food consumption mostly from europe or the west. now russia is completely self-sufficient so there is no risk of food shortages. certain basic items are on the shelves. at the start of this year, russia built up a substantial war chest, $630 billion, the fifth highest in the world. we also note that the central bank it has greatly dispersed those reserves. although the central bank is now sanctioned and reserves held in western banks they cannot access, but a lot of reserves are being moved to china and elsewhere where they can access them. in that sense, putin is right in saying that russia can withstand a lot of pain because he has made the economy a lot more resilient, the banking system

more resilient than it used to be. but the critical factor to repeat is so long as russia is able to export its key commodities such as gas and other materials and be paid for them, so long as there are other banks remaining, then russia is earning by our estimate at least $30 billion in surplus every month. that is a substantial financial lifeline, which means the government can continue to fund employment subsidies, invest in economic stability, fund social programs, etc. pensions, it's utter that means the situation in russia, it is not ideal. but there really is no danger of an economic or financial collapse, and that means pressures will not be much either. hazem: tom burgis, going back to the issue around the oligarchs

and going after the russian oligarchs, particularly those who are very close to putin, the later generation. the thinking here is these sanctions will somehow, it is hoped, put the squeeze on them because they have hitched their wagon to putin up to now and they might think about turning against him. but could they even weather this financially? because this is coming more than two weeks into this war. there has been criticism of the british government, that they have acted too slow. have they had time to move their money elsewhere so no one can touch it? is it too little, too late at this point? tom: yeah, i have to take issue with the idea that this is a defensive war. let's be clear about what the russian regime is, it is a regime of thieves. putin as soon as he came back to st. petersburg at the end of the cold war began enriching himself

through corruption, and he has gone on magnifying that. and appelbaum described him as the group of billionaires that control the secret police. that is the engine of putin's regime. it is a kleptocracy, it runs on corruption. it requires extraordinary feats of propaganda to maintain control. part of the propaganda has been the scare stories about the nazification and militarization of ukraine, and this has been used as a full spree text for invasion. it follows from that that the motivations of putin and those around him are in many senses material. targeting that wealth is important. as you say, though, the way the west has gone about it, the u.k., europe, and big u.s., it

has been pretty sloppy, especially in the u.k. the enormous delay in imposing sanctions, there's a lot of anecdotal accounts of money being spirited away before their names were on the sanctions list. further, the uk's record of enforcing sanctions is absolutely pitiful. it remains the case that the u.k. like the rest of the world continues to allow this insane idea of financial secrecy, which has become so widespread we are accustomed to it. but you can participate in a democratic free-market economy in disguise, behind a front company. you put a few names on the list and may be problems for chelsea and you grab a few yachts, but we don't know what the kleptocracy is doing with the wealth because we allow them to move it around in secret. the final point i would make, and it picks up on something that was raised earlier, is the prospect that this could backfire by accelerating what i called in my book the rise of clkleptopia.

pushing the elite, but also the economy more generally into alliances with other ultra corrupt states. china, venezuela, iran. they all wear ideological masks, but all the political systems are engines for the enrichment of the powerful. the more we use sanctions, donald trump used them incredibly liberally, the more we use them the bigger the club about castes gets, and the more that club bands together. if you throw everyone out, then sanctions become pointless because there is an alternative economy people can operate in. hazem: let's talk about the potential economic blowback on this a little more widely. glenn diesen, is there a real danger that these sanctions will end up hurting too many people, too many ordinary people in the west in forms of inflation, higher energy prices, which we are already seeing now? glenn: energy, food production, a lot of these areas you will

see much higher prices. but energy is a very interesting area because once energy prices go up, everything else has to go up. i think it will be very hard to control this. this is why the europeans have been very cautious to follow the american lead on this, for these very strict sanctions. i think there's also other problems that are coming down the road because, as the previous speaker mentioned, one of the problems with sanctions is obviously if they are too harsh for too long, the ones you're punishing learn to live without you. they find alternatives. there are too many countries now being sanctioned, from china, russia, iran. i think a lot of these countries have an incentive to establish a parallel economic infrastructure, which they already are. they are seeking to cut off from the western technologies,

western industries, used transportation corridors, their banks, the u.s. dollar, swift. they have created alternatives for all of this. and they still have a lot of work to be done, but this is obviously the trend. you can only use sanctions for so long. but you also have to keep in mind that china and other countries are also watching as well because this is becoming a case in what might happen to them in the future. if you are sitting in beijing, would you want to be vulnerable by having dependence on the dollar, using swift, holding u.s. debt, using american technologies? certainly they are in preparation to cut off from america to reduce full mobility. this is the situation we are in. any economic dependence comes

weaponized. with the harshness of these sanctions, i don't think it has been properly thought how this could play out. also on a final point, how is russia going to respond now? sanctioning the russian central bank, this is very extreme stuff. now you can see that russia might see more western assets. you can nationalize certain assets. oil and gas deliveries, you can focus on asia, draw patterns on businesses and simply take over companies that are leaving. i am not sure if it is possible with mcdonald's, for example. simply save the workplaces and make one big final divorce from the west and decide the future lies with the east instead. hazem: let's put that to chris weafer. glenn diesen brings up a point that russia has weapons of its own economically and can respond in kind. how damaging could that be for

the countries that are targeting russia? chris: of course, if this were to happen, it would be enormously damaging to the global economy. you just have to look at a map and see that russia is the major commodities supplier for the world. not just oil and gas, but wheat. ukraine and russia are the two biggest producers of wheat, and ukraine exports are now disrupted. but also, nickel, palladium, and all sorts of materials. if those exports from russia were to stop, the global economic impact would be very severe. we would have a global recession. but it is important to bear in mind, at least as it stands right now, president putin and other people around him continue to say to russia we will continue to honor our export contracts. what they are saying is, particularly to europe, if europe continues to buy russian gas as per the contract and the volumes and pricing, russia will

continue to supply. for example, they send an update that is sending gas to the various routes, including across ukraine as per the contract. this is the same in the soviet union. there was never a supply disruption. this actually what russia is saying, provide the u.k. is paying us and the roots that we can be paid, such as banks in the swift system, then we will keep supplying. but they never lose an opportunity to remind the rest of the world how dependent the global economy is on russian commodities. when you talk about companies like coca-cola or other brands, they are essentially russian companies. they employ russian people and they source their product mostly in russia. ikea and a few others are different. that is why ikea had to close

quite quickly because you could not import flatback furniture, etc. but in the case of mcdonald's and other countries that are sourcing their materials inside the country, they are essentially russian companies in terms of employment and paying taxes. what the russian government is saying is they want those companies to stay, they prefer them to stay, and they are offering incentives for companies to stay, even recognizing that some companies are under global consumer or stakeholder pressure to temporarily close. they are excepting that, they are acknowledging that. but they still want them to stay. but if they choose to go, if companies say we are now exiting russia, we are not coming back, the russian government has said their businesses could be nationalized because they want to protect russian jobs, or the assets could be confiscated and sold elsewhere. they quickly aligned with that. we have seen china already saying that their big companies

are now actively looking at asset acquisition opportunities, particularly in strategic sectors such as energy, raw materials. they will be a keen buyer for western assets to become available and russia will accommodate them. hazem: let's take it back to tom burgis. going back to the oligarchs. if you look at the optics of this, is there a messaging problem that the west has with ukrainians? what is going after a few russian billionaires going to do for the millions of ukrainians who are suffering right now? they've got enough money to whether this. -- they've got enough money to weather this. do you think there is a messaging issue in terms of showing ukraine that the west is fully behind them? tom: yeah. actually, i think it goes much further than that. you read the statements that the u.k. and other western governments have made to

accompany their sanctions decisions, to justify why whoever is going on this list. there is very little information as far as i can see that we did not know a week ago, a month ago, a year ago, that we did not know that quinn putin murdered -- back when putin murdered someone on the streets of london, or when he next crimea. up until now, our decision has been, we would rather keep the money. there is a mismatch in what we are doing now and what they ukrainians might feel they could demand of us. hazem: unfortunately, that is going to have to be the last word. thank you to all three of you. chris weafer, glenn diesen, and tom burgis. thank you for being on "inside story." and thank you for watching. you can see this program again. go to our website, al jazeera.com. for further discussion, go to

our facebook page. that is facebook.com/ajinsidestory. join the conversation on twitter. for me, hazem sika, and the entire team, bye for now. íñíññ■ñ■

lydia feng: chinese youth are living in a brave new world. they're richer, better educated, and more connected than ever before. but they're also under constant pressure to compete and to conform. male: [speaking in foreign language] zhao jia: [speaking in foreign language] male: [speaking in foreign language] lydia: we've collaborated with chinese filmmakers to bring you three intimate stories of young people