Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.

The breakdown is sponsored by nexo.io, Arculus, and FTX, and produced and distributed by CoinDesk.

What's going on, guys? It is Monday, February 28th. And today, we are picking up the story of Russia and Ukraine,

specifically the West's economic response to Russia from where we left off last week.

Before that, if you were enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe, give it a rating,

give it a review, or if you want to get deeper into the conversation, and there is certainly

no shortage of things to discuss right now. Come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link

in the show notes or go to bit.orgly slash breakdown pod. Finally, one disclosure, as always,

in addition to them being a sponsor of the show,

I also work with FTX. Now, let's get caught up. I'm going to assume a little bit that you

have background on this situation if you're listening to the show. And if you don't, go back and

listen to a couple of episodes from last week where I talk about the economic implications

of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. So five key things I think happened over the weekend just

to level set ourselves. The first is that Ukraine still stands independently, specifically

it's still in control of Kiev. This is much more than many would have hoped for when Russia actually made the

decision to invade, and is shaping the policy discourse in major ways. Ukraine and the West have

been absolutely winning the information war, and it's having major impacts on how nations are

deciding to respond. Number two, Ukraine and Russia are currently meeting in Belarus for talks

without preconditions. They've just concluded the first day, and while one representative of the

Ukrainian delegation has said that the Russians are still biased in many ways, there was enough

to be going on that they're going to continue meeting. Number three, over the weekend,

...