Quo Vadis Nato after Russia's war in Ukraine?

Good morning and welcome to Europe Express.

Joe Biden, US President, will come to Europe next week to take part in the respective summit meetings with the heads of state and government of NATO and the EU that are about war in Ukraine. In preparation for this first personal summit since Russia's invasion of the NATO defense minister , gather in Brussels today. We will see what you will discuss and what the likely next steps for alliance are.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic came to Kiev last night to demonstrate their support for the Ukrainian struggle-a courageous step that teased some feathers in the EU capital, since they only informed EU officials about their travel plans and were not given a mandate as a whole.

The EU, the United Kingdom and the United States also announced new sanctions yesterday - which aimed at more Russian oligarchs, economic sectors and in the United States case on more Russian military officers. With persons who are under sanctions, wallets for cryptocurrencies flock to avoid that their assets are frozen, we will bring you the latest information about what the authorities are trying to do on both sides of the Atlantic to close this gap.

and in something that looks like a remake of the pandemic from 2020 hamster purchases we will hear which products in Germany, Turkey and Spain quickly disappear from the supermarket shelves.

Brutal death and the destruction of the war in Ukraine show no signs of an end, but NATO is already planning that the military alliance puts it on the fact that Europe will be far less safe Europe regardless of the future of Kiev, writes Kiev Henry Foy in Brussels.

The Defense Minister of the 30-member US allied military alliance meets in Brussels for their first personal conversation since the beginning of the Russian invasion of a wealth of questions of how NATO continues to support Ukraine, Russia from another penetration, and plans for what many expect as a repetition of the Cold War.

NATO representatives say that their deployment of additional troops, weapons and other equipment in the past few months and weeks with members near Russia is only the first wave of a probably massive militarization of Eastern Europe, in order to take Russia, a subsumed Belarus and-in accommodating the worst case-a annexed or rich-friendly Ukraine.

"This is a developing story, it is by no means over," said Julianne Smith, US ambassador at NATO. She said the ministers would talk about “other steps that we can take together to strengthen NATO's eastern flank, and whether we have to work out a medium and longer-term plan in more detail or not. So stay on this front.”

This winter, when the fears about Russia's supposed intention to invade, NATO began to use more armed forces, since the eastern states demanded greater deterrent for possible attacks, a process that has intensified since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine.

There are currently 100,000 US troops in Europe and 40,000 soldiers under direct NATO command, almost all of whom are in the east of the alliance. The United States is using Patriot Air Defense Batteries in Poland, while Germany and the Netherlands do the same in Slovakia. Hundreds of ships and military aircraft are constantly on patrol.

future developments will lead to NATO tearing the NATO Russia basic file, saying representatives of the alliance, with the argument that Russia's actions have already made the friendship document from 1997-the specific restrictions on military missions in border areas-have made controversial.

The Minister of Defense, who will first meet colleagues from Ukraine, Finland, Sweden, Georgia and the EU before they hold a complete meeting of the alliance, will be redesigned as part of larger troops, air and marine operations, more air and rocket defense systems and cyber skills.

This reinforced attitude with a significant effect on the safety orientation of the continent could be approved at the NATO summit in Madrid in June.

"Russia's invasion in Ukraine and his military integration with Belarus create a new security reality on the European continent," said NATO general secretary Jens Stoltenberg yesterday. "So we have to reorganize our military attitude for this new reality."

The oil prices for the first time in more than two weeks after renewed blocks in China due to increasing COVID 19 infections, fallen below $ 100 per barrel. ( more here )

Capping against Krypto

Russian individuals and companies affected by sanctions have connections to "several hundred thousand" cryptocurrency wallets, against which governments want to act in the USA and Europe, they write Eva Szalay in London and Valentina Pop in Brussels.

The data of the digital-asset data company Elliptic come, while the crypto industry is trying to keep up from the crosshair of regulatory authorities and authorities in the United States, where the Ministry of Justice has already said that the authorities are on the sanction list.

In the meantime, a new round of sanctions against several other oligarchs connected to the Kremlin was announced yesterday on the other side of the Atlantic in London and Brussels. In the EU capital, the finance minister discussed opportunities to close loopholes, including crypto-assets that can still be used to circumvent the restrictive regime.

"We have freezing assets in the EU and personalized sanctions against oligarchs - at the moment we are trying to avoid any chance of avoiding these sanctions," said finance minister Christian Lindner. "Nobody who supports Putin is inviolable," he added.

elliptic said that "several hundred thousand crypto addresses have identified that are connected to Russia -based sanctioned actors", whereby the list goes beyond the list of impaired people and contains associated employees.

"We actively investigate crypto wallets, which are believed to be connected to Russian officials and oligarchs, are subject to sanctions. We work with government agencies and other organizations," said Simone Maini, managing director of Elliptic, in a blog post on the company's website.

The data company also linked more than 15 million digital addresses with criminal activities with connections to Russia and localized more than 400 virtual service providers, mainly stock exchanges where cryptocurrencies can be bought with Russian ruble.

transactions in Bitcoin against the ruble rose sharply after the sanctions and when the ruble crashed, he lost almost half of his value compared to the dollar.

But while attention is firmly focused on transactions and flows from the ruble to Bitcoin and other digital coins, Elliptic has warned that Russia could try to strengthen its activities in Bitcoin mining to avoid restrictions.

"The mining process effectively converts energy into cryptocurrency," said Tom Robinson, co-founder and senior scientist from Elliptic.

Hamster purchases 2.0

In an unwanted flashback into 2020, the German word of the week hamster purchase : hamster purchases. The verb is hamsters, and the concept is quite self -explanatory when you imagine a hamster who stuffed his cheeks with food, writes Erika Solomon in Berlin.

in the first year of pandemic it was toilet paper. Now, after the Russian War in Ukraine, the German food oil and flour disgust - since a large part of the two products from Russia and Ukraine are imported.

In response to this, some retailers, including the Aldi discounter chain, announced that the sale to customers, whereby local media reported that the wholesaler Metro could soon follow.

According to the Association of Oil Sowing Processing Industry in Germany, Germany imports around 94 percent of its sunflower oil and recently warned of possible bottlenecks because of the war.

German sales representatives who tried to calm German buyers succeeded. They asked the citizens to refrain any hamster purchase , which insisted that there would be enough if everyone would only buy what they needed. Days later, the food shelves with food oil and flour - another important Ukrainian and Russian export articles - were empty.

Other countries show similar symptoms. Turkey, which imports 55 percent of its sunflower oil from Russia and 15 percent from Ukraine, also suffers from hamster purchases. The government insisted that there were enough supplies, but announced last week that it would ban the export of all food oils and margarine.

In Spain, the agricultural minister reacted to the sunflower oil craze by pointing out that the Europeans should instead use olive oil.

What can be seen today

1. The NATO defense minister meet in Brussels

2. The college of the European Commission holds its weekly session

remarkable, quoted

If we stay agile and are ready to adapt if necessary, we can make sure that the recovery does not completely derail

• dark prospects: EU growth is "severely impaired" by the war in Ukraine, the EU Commission warned yesterday when the trust of investors in Germany declined sharply. The head of the European Central Bank also said that the Ukraine crisis would "reduce growth and increase inflation through higher energy and raw material prices, the interruption of international trade and a weaker trust".

• Gas flow: Germany's largest energy supplier RWE has stated that a stop of Russian energy sports to put pressure on Moscow, harm German households and industrial industries in Europe's largest economy.

• compete against China: The Commission, the Member States and the European Parliament agreed on legislation that will give Brussels more powers to prevent companies from China, India and other major economies from gaining large public orders unless they grant European companies mutual access.