Hello and welcome to the intelligence from the economist.

In New York, I'm John Fassman.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

In 2009, Symbabwe issued a $100 trillion note.

It barely paid for loaf of bread.

Its inflation rate then was probably upwards of 200 million percent.

Today the rate is 152 percent and rising, leading many to fear that hyperinflation is coming back.

America's bombing of Tokyo in March of 1945 killed 100,000 people in a single night.

Almost as many as in the much more famous nuclear attack on Hiroshima.

Our obituary's editor remembers a man who insisted that Japan not forget its past.

First up though.

Ukraine's president, Vladimir Zelensky, gave his latest video address yesterday.

He thanked the United States for approving a $40 billion aid package,

but he also gave a chilling assessment of the situation in Eastern Ukraine.

He said it was no exaggeration to describe what's happening there as a hell.

Donbass is completely destroyed.

He said this is a deliberate and criminal attempt to kill as many Ukrainians as possible.

This is what will be qualified as the genocide of the Ukrainian people.

Much of the world has thrilled the president Zelensky's brave clarity,

but the Kremlin's propaganda machine ensures that few Russians will ever see or hear him.

Since Vladimir Putin announced the start of the so-called special military operation in Ukraine on February 24th,

control over information in Russia has become a lot tighter.

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