Hey, welcome. Welcome, everybody. So nice to see all your shining faces in here, out there, all around the world. Welcome to the LHL. I'm your host, Stephen Colbert. Ladies and gentlemen.

It has now been two weeks since Russia began its brutal illegal invasion of Ukraine. This is a vast human tragedy and there are no winners in war. But so far, the loser is Russia. They have faced unbelievable resistance by the brave Ukrainian people who have kept Putin for meeting what he apparently thought would be easy military objectives. Where Putin has succeeded is in uniting the entire free world against them.

Russia is getting absolutely pummeled with boycotts and sanctions. As well they should. To the point that they're trying to scare us into dropping them, one Kremlin spokesperson expressed it in this threatening way. The United States has declared economic war on Russia. Thank you for noticing.

We feel seen. And so far, the economic war is having the desired effect. Yesterday, Fitch, which is a credit rating agency, downgraded Russian securities by six notches to a single C grade. In this case, the C stands for what their money is now worth. Crap. The C rating.

The C rating reflects Fitch's view that a sovereign default is imminent. Russia is about to lose everything and crash with a buddy, I guess. Belarus better have a big couch because without a credit rating, the only way they can pay their debt is by holding a garage sale at Lenin's tomb. Every pickled corpse must go.

The economy is 1972. Is this 1967 or 1972? The economy has gotten so bad in Russia, some supermarkets are even limiting the amount of flour and sugar customers can purchase. That's going to be tough on the great Russian bakeoff.

My signature bake today is delicious brownies, ingredients are potato and brown is potato. Russian shoppers are also hoarding items from IKEA, H&M and Zara before they become relics of a bygone era. It's amazing that they think anything from H&M will last long enough to become a relic.

I think they're coming to clean Xbox. I think there's one wipe. Yesterday, McDonald's announced they were temporarily closing all of their locations in Russia. That unleashed a frenzy of panic buying. Just look at all the people lining up to get their last taste of special sauce. And with the golden arches closing down, Russians are going to have to settle for their local chain.

They're going to say, F skis, home of their kids meal, the box of sadness, but up, up, up, up, up. Life's meaningless. It looks like over me 11. He says, who would that be? What's brother? Not Ali Okshay. It looks like all major food brands are Russian for the exits.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi announced that they will suspend business in Russia. Your move, Shasta. Coke is suspending all of their operations, but PepsiCo announced they would continue to sell potato chips and daily essentials such as milk, cheese and baby formula to which Russian baby said, are you sure you don't have Coke?

Can you look in the back? You know, okay. Putin is trying to win the PR battle at home by rallying his people around a new logo.

Reportedly, the letter Z has become a symbol for Russians who support the invasion of Ukraine.

No, no, Putin, you keep your hands off the letter Z. It is one of the most essential letters. It's 40% of pizza.

The Z symbol, the Z symbol, pizza fans, and here, I guess, I don't know. No, no, I'm not asked. Here it is.

See, I guess.

The Z symbol started popping up a few weeks ago when it was seen painted on tanks, armored personnel carriers, and other military vehicles along the Russian border with Ukraine.

And now some Russians are putting Z stickers on the backs of cars and on Russian billboards.

One Russian talk show punter recently wore a t-shirt with a large white Z, leading many to speculate that this is an orchestrated Kremlin effort to drum up support for the war.

It really makes Putin seem desperate. And I'm, is this true? I'm told we have footage of Russian citizens response to the campaign.

Putin, stop trying to make Z happen. It's not going to happen.

Thank you, Comrade Regina.

Russian has a hat. It's a Russian hat.

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