Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Monday, May 31, and this is your FT news briefing.

US retailers are worried about having enough inventory for year-end holidays. Russia is backing

up Belarus big time, and US regulators want to play a bigger role in the cryptocurrency market.

And speaking of crypto, the FT's Rob Armstrong admits he's still trying to figure it out,

and maybe it's better to think of Bitcoin as equity instead of currency.

Let's think of it as a call option on an equity that owns a technology that we're not sure if it's

going to be magic or not, but it just might be. I'm Mark Filipino, and here's the news you need to start your day.

It's Memorial Day in the US, but American retailers are thinking more about Christmas,

and they're bracing for historic low inventories amid a surge in consumer demand.

Chains like Costco and Dollar Tree warn that port congestion is raising free costs,

add to that a scarcity of shipping containers and dwindling warehouse space,

and it's taking longer for goods to get onto store shelves. Several retailers set on earnings

calls last week that they'd accelerate orders to avoid running low on stock. One transportation

executive said that we might not see inventory catching up with demand until early next year.

Russia yesterday agreed to release $500 million in credit to Belarus, and it'll also

increase flights between the two countries. Yesterday's move comes after Belarus forced a passenger

plane to land in order to seize a dissident journalist. The US in Europe condemned the move and

announced sanctions. The reason why Putin, I think, is swung behind Lukashenko so strongly in this

current standoff is that they have a common enemy in the EU and the US.

Let's see if he's Moscow pure chief Henry Foy. And also Putin has been pushing for a while now

to deeper integrate the two countries. Some people have talked with a full-on amalgamation,

maybe some kind of federal, union state, and a weak Lukashenko is an easier and more malleable

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