Latest Technology Developments On Russia Invasion

Meta and Twitter disrupt a Russian disinformation campaign. We'll talk to a top meta security official about what more can be done to fight Russian propaganda on social media. And we will talk about the role of crypto in the Ukrainian war, with several cryptocurrency surging after Russian sanctions, but could crypto also be a tool to allow Russian billionaires to circumvent them. We'll discuss We'll get to all of

that in a moment. But first, stocks are raising almost all of their losses, Bitcoin rallying as investors weigh the risk of mounting sanctions on Russia. Meantime, Russia canceled trading in Moscow, but chairs of Russian companies cratered elsewhere, joining us. Now our ed Ludlow, who has been looking at market reaction across the globe. Yeah, it's been an incredible day in financial markets. Yes, we ended off session lows in

terms of the equity story. Look at the spif just a quarter of percentage point, but investors clearly trying to work out their exposure position themselves. This is February, last day of the month, and it's the second consecutive monthly declined for U S secuities, the worst street going back to October. A big part of that story, of course, is yields. You see a big drive, a big advance in the bond market. US tenure yield, the benchmark in the US market off by fourteen basis points one eight

two percent. So clearly investors taking the assessment. Semi conductors have been such a big part of that. Say ancients package well, the socks off by seven tenths of one percent, but it had been down more than two percent. So also investors working out the explosion of their bitcoin is really interesting. Trades seven, it's Monday. You and I back here in the studio over the weekend, I was not looking at cryptocurrency markets. If you see that big jump,

the biggest since July for bitcoins. The consideration here is that whichever side the sanctions you sit on, crypto adoption crypto use may become more prevalent in the wake of those, particularly financial sanctions. To work out those that might be strung by certain currencies. Also kind of covering me ins my Bloombog tunuel. Yes, there's a lot of red on the screen at the moment, but there are also sectors

that are in winners. This is the out performance of the defense sector on the SMP five relative to the broader index. You can see money has been going into the defense stocks. You know all about some of these NATO countries that are upping their defense spending unprecedentedly so in the wake of what we're seeing out of Ukraine. And finally there's the specific story of Russia and sanctions.

A lot of it around commodities. You look at oil holding it around a barrel below a hundred, and we held pretty steady there as sanctions become more and more encroaching on the energy markets. But also the Bloomberg Commodity Index shows how broad basedis is soft and hard commodities jumping by the most insects. And finally, the van K e t F. This is a U S listed e t F which trucks which tracks Russian equities with the

Russian markets closed until further notice. This was an issue of price discovery using that e t F truck tracking Russian assets down the biggest drop Emily in history. All right, thank you. Lots of moving parts there. As sweeping sanctions shake Russia's financial system and ripple worldwide, the Bank of Russia is taking desperate measures to seal the nation's economy, and the question is what more can the West do? Bloombergh Jordan's Fabian has more Jordans as far as we know.

How much further is the US willing to go, especially when it comes to swift or otherwise. Right now they're saying U S oficials are saying that nothing is off the table, But one area they've been very hesitant to touch is the energy sector, which is of course the lifeblood of Rush's economy. There they're saying this morning that there's going to be certain carve outs or exemptions for energy related trades when they do announce the specifics of

this swift band. That being said, the sanctions package thus far hasn't convinced Vladimir Putin to withdraw from Ukraine. So the question is, if this latest round of central bank penalties doesn't do the trick, then what does How far is the U S willing to go? And obviously, Jordan, you're covering the White House forest talk to us about how the Ukraine situation is changing President Biden's plan for

the state of the Union coming up tomorrow. When the White House was initially conceiving the speech, they were thinking of it as a broad reset, uh, domestically on the President Biden's domestic agenda, which has been stalled since late last year, and also on the COVID situation. Uh, those two things are still gonna be prominent factor in this speech.

But there's going to be much about the situation Ukraine, and they're gonna try and cast it in a way that it makes a part of the President Biden's effort to promote democracy both in the United States and abroad well. And there's also this question is about how these sanctions against Russia impact economies around the world and impact the US economy, which is already hurting from inflation. How is the President thinking about that? As I mentioned that the

energy sector is a huge factor here. Inflation has been a tremendous bugaboo for Biden politically. It's it's really helped drag down his approval ratings. And thus far we've seen a real reluctance by the US government to go after Russia's oil and gas sector because they fear rising oil prices beyond how far they've already risen. So Uh, it's gonna be a big test for them in the coming weeks and days. Uh to see again, if Russia is not pulling out, not picking any concessions on the Ukraine front,

how are they going? Are they're willing to go and you know, ban exports of Russian oil for example. Uh, that's something we'll be watching in the next few weeks, alright, Our White House reporter Jordan Fabian Jordan, thank you for that update. The war in Ukraine and the moments leading up to it have been muddied by disinformation online, with Russian actors pushing state narratives via platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and more. Joining us to break down the role

of social media in this ongoing war. Bloomberg Sarah Fryar, Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. Talk to us about how this fight against Russian disinformation is different than what we've seen in years past, for example, disinformation surrounding

the US election. I think it's different because in this case you have a very clear instance of a state actor with the goal the gold known and you can just look for those specific talking points across social media and in those chiels right, we've seen, We've seen Twitter, We've seen UM Facebook, Twitter labeling Russian state media of Facebook is removing it from from circulation in the EU. UM YouTube has restricted any sort of advertising on that

content in certain places. So I think I think that the side is a little clear because the U S based company UM your US based companies, and they are getting pressure from governments in the EU, UM and in the US, So I think that it's a little less murky what they have to do here talks us about how widespread this particular campaign is. I mean, they say they've suspended forty accounts in forty eight hours, but could it be much bigger than that? You're referring to uh

operation that meta found on Facebook and Instagram. I mean, this is this is the typical kind of thing that they've been looking for for years, ever since the presidential election that involved Russian state interference and spreading and misinformation. This is what they've trained their systems on now, so they're they're a lot more aware of what to look at. Are they catching everything? Probably not um, but this is at least um invocative of of how how they're proactively

looking for such things now. It's it's not like these companies that are being blindsided anymore. They are being asked um. And not just not just these companies, but information disinformation researchers the world over have been looking for this kind of content and flagging it. So I think that there are a lot more resources, a lot more eyeballs, and the more eyeballs to the problem, that easier it is disolved,

all right, Bloomberg Stari Fire, thank you for that update. Meantime, as we just discussed medicine, it's disrupted a Russian disinformation operation targeting Ukraine, blocking efforts by a hacking group attempting to compromise the accounts of prominent Ukrainians. I want to get the latest on this from MET has had a security policy Napaniel Gleicher himself Da Daniel talk to us about the significance of what you have disrupted so far, and what else, what more work there is to do here? Sure,

so we've identified and removed these two separate campaigns. One is an influence operation where these actors were using fake accounts across a whole number of social media networks Instagram and Facebook, but also on Twitter, on YouTube, on Okay and v k which are Russian social media networks, and their own websites to try to push messages suggesting that the Ukrainian government is sailing or failed, to undermine trust in the Ukrainian government and boost trust in the Russian government.

And then separately, this hacking campaign. This is a group known as Ghostwriter, which is a well known threat actor that operates across Eastern Europe. They have now begun targeting individuals in Ukraine, including at least one journalists and prominent military officials and government linked officials. And what they're doing is they're hacking in and taking over their personal emails and their devices, and then they're using that to take over all their social media accounts and try to use

those accounts to post false narratives or deceptive narratives. The good news is our teams have found and taken action on both of these operations. We've shared that information with our partners in industry, and so far it doesn't look like they were having a lot of success. So, for example, that influence operation, they only had about five thousand followers or even a bit less on Facebook and Instagram when

they were removed. So to my next point, forty accounts in forty eight hours, how significant is that really, given that metas platforms, Facebook, Instagram, what's top are massive? Is this just scratching the surface, you know, in terms of how far these disinformation campaigns are running. Well, this is only one piece of the work that we're doing in Ukraine, and I wouldn't want people to think that this is

the only thing that's happening. We've stood up a full special operations center and lets us bring in investigators and product experts from across the company so that we can tackle these challenges. We've rolled out a whole number of new products changes to help keep people stay safe on the platform. But influence operations like this, it's not the

size that you need to pay attention to. This is an indication and it's the first indication we've seen that there is that there are covert influence operations from Russia targeting public debate in Ukraine. There's been a lot of speculation that that's happening, and of course there's been a lot of focus on overt influence operations from Russian state media and from other corners, but this is the first

time we've seen this evidence. It's a good reminder that the threat actors that teams around the world are focused on our targeting this crisis, this invasion, and it's critical that we all remain vigilant to take action on these networks when they when they appear well and look, Russian disinformation campaigns are nothing new. As you and I have talked about in the past. Why did it take an invasion to get this kind of action from META on Ukraine?

I mean, couldn't you have done this sooner? So we've enforced on a number of operations targeting Ukraine over the years. And actually an interesting point this network in particular, which is which is in particular stood up and begin engaging as tensions in Ukraine developed, UH is linked to a network we removed last year in that we removed from the platform we know these threat actors keep trying, but one of the indicators of success is that network removed.

Last year it had about two and fifty thousand followers on Facebook and Instagram. This network, when they've tried to come back, had less than five thousand. And that's the goal here. These threat actors will keep trying, but over time, working with partners across society and improving our systems, we can make it harder for them, We can contain them, and we can ensure that even if they do get on the platforms, they just don't reach that many people

before they get taken down. Look, your head of policy, Nick Klag, just announced you will be suspending Ussian state run media Art and spot Nik in Europe. There are calls for you to do that globally. When you look at the bigger picture, what more do you think Meta and its platforms, it's massive platforms can do to crack down on this kind of disinformation. So we've already taken a number of steps on Russian state media. We have removed their ability to run ads and demonetize them around

the world. As Nick mentioned, in response to requests from the Ukrainian government and the EU government, we blocked them a number of specific Russian state media entities from broadcasting into the EU and into Ukraine. We're taking a whole range of other steps to essentially de amplify their ability to share information on our platforms. And also, we have third party fact checkers that are continuing to review content posted by Russian state media entities and other entities around

the world. When they identify something is false or misleading, we label that to make sure people can see that, and we down rank it so it doesn't appear in people's needs and people are less likely to encounter the information. Meantime, you've got the Russian government asking you to take stuff down. How are you handling those requests? Looking at the other side of the coin, We're going to be consistent with

our policies. The Russian government has asked us to remove fact checks from Russian state media publications where the third party fact checkers I mentioned have determined that they were making statements that were false or misleading. We refused to

do that. Those fact checks are still available. Our third party fact checkers are still fact checking content from around the world, including from Russian state media, and actually, in the meantime, we've identified and labeled a number of additional Russian state media entities. So we're continuing to push. In fact, we'll be likely identifying and labeling more as time passes.

That our investigators continue to work. And what can you tell us about cooperation between Meta and Twitter and TikTok and YouTube on these efforts. I know that that's that kind of coordination is something that's been happening for a few years now. Yeah, coordination across industry is absolutely critical because threat actors like the ones we're talking about don't just target one social media platform. I mentioned that the Influence operations we took down targeted a number of social

media platforms, similarly that that hacking group Ghostwriter. They begin by compromising personal email and then using that to get to a whole bunch of different social media accounts. Whenever we find an operation like this, we share information with our partners so that they can investigate and they can take action themselves on violations on their platform, and then they share information back with us so that we can

do the same thing. One of the biggest changes from even from is that today there are determined expert teams at social media platforms around the world, in government and in civil society, that are working to defend against these types of threats and are sharing information with each other so we can all counter them as a whole of society response. Alright, met ahead of security policy, Nathaniel, I sure, thank you so much as always for joining us to

talk about the work you're doing. Meantime, TikTok users can now upload videos up to ten minutes long. This after months of testing. TikTok has been expanding its video length ever since its creation, going from an initial fifteen seconds to sixty seconds and then, most recently three minutes. TikTok says it hopes this will unleash even more creative possibilities

for creators around the world. Longer videos could allow more context. However, critics say this also opens the door for more misinformation and disinformation, especially in the midst of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Coming up, tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing their war torn country now able to access homes on Airbnb for free or on that pledge from CEO Brian Chesky.

Next this Spoomberg AIRBNBC O Brian Chesky says the home sharing service will offer free short term housing for up to one thousand Ukrainian refugees now being forced to flee their country. This is something the company has done in the past during other international conflicts. For more, I'm joined by Bloomberg Michael Tobin. Bloomberg Michael, what do we know about Airbnb's efforts this time and how does it compare

to what they've done in years past. So Airbnb is stepped up and offered to provide short term housing to up to a hundred thousands UM Ukrainian refugees that are coming from the country. UM, the size and scope of what we're seeing out of Ukraine is pretty large, and people are estimating that it's only going to get larger as the conflict progresses. UM. In the past, Airbnb has really helped us step up and provide housing to refugees

from Afghanistan. They were able to provide housing to more than twenty one refugees and have also stepped up in the past to provide housing UM too refucues from Syria and Venezuela. How is this operation being funded? I mean, is this purely thanks to the generosity of Airbnb hosts? That's part of it. I mean, ultimately, at the end of the day, people are going to have to open up their homes, right, and they're also getting some support

from donors as well as their refugee fund. But I mean a lot of the work is gonna have to come from the hosts themselves. So talk to us that about how airbnb dot org fits into the broader company efforts and the longer term goals here. I think that they are continuing to place an emphasis on kind of this social outreach and humanitarian work. And I mean I think the speed that they've been able to put this together, I mean, this crisis has been going on for a

few days. It's clearly you know, at the top of their mind whenever something happens, they're looking for a way that they can help out. We know that other companies like Uber are pulling employees out of Ukraine. Uber is also suspended its service is in Ukraine. What kind of operations does Airbnb have in Ukraine and Russia to be fair,

and how are they handling this? In total? UM there's about seventeen thousand short term listings in Ukraine, and that's data from air DNA, which is a market research company. UM from what I've seen, there is a good deal of UM I guess market share that Airbnb has within that community. UM. I spoke to a few hosts who are in the city of Mariopool, which is down on the c of asof so it connects, you know, to the Black Sea. UM and they said that business was

going as normal up until the week before the invasion. UM. So it sounds like some of those are still in operation. The company said that they're going to continue to support hosts and guests, but we haven't heard anything direct from them.

And what about in Russia in particular, Yeah, so in Russia there are more there's about nine than the active rental units UM and I haven't checked to see what share Airbnb has, but it's a much larger market and to be fair, also a much larger country than Ukraine. All Right, Bloomberg's Michael Tolben, We're going to continue to follow Airbnb's efforts. Here see how many Ukrainian refugees take Airbnb up on this offer, this generous offer. Michael, thank

you for that report. Meantime, Bloomberg has learned that i Fit Health and Fitness saw its valuation fall by about six after raising new capital. The Peloton rival now valued below three billion dollars. Just last week, i FIT announced the restructuring and layoffs. I FITS brand include Nordic Track and pro Form Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology and Emily

Chang in San Francisco, starling space actors. Space based internet services active in Ukraine and helping the country citizens stay connected. This according to a tweet from ukas City lamask the world, which is man also promised more hardware is on the way to help Ukraine in response to a plea from the country's Vice Prime Minister, Mikhailo Federer of joining us now with the latest on that are at Ludlow and talk to us about what Starlink is doing in Ukraine. Yeah,

it's interesting they've moved so quickly. So Elon Musk tweeted that two pm on Saturday, we actually just in the last couple of hours had an image through from Ukraine from that same minister and those Starlink ground terminals or sets have arrived. You see them there in the back of that truck. We don't know how many you are in there, but that's incredibly fast. Bearing in mind that the Starlink service wasn't active in the Ukraine and wasn't

juiced be active there until three. So there have been reports, for example from vias At that their internet service has been disrupted by a suspected cyber hack. This goes some way to helping the country of Ukraine and staying connected. Why is starlink so useful for what's going on there? Yeah,

it's the simplicity of it. So inside each of those boxes there's the receiver unit and a dish, and you literally, as Elon Musk has put in the past, stand outside, point your dish in the sky and hope that there's a Starling satellite overhead. But we've already seen some tweets from the ground showing that they're getting good connectivity a hundred and thirty seven megabits per second to TV some context, the average broadband in the US gives you around fifty

megabits per second. So it's strong WiFi that you're able to run video on, you can communicate with and as we know, some of the services in that country have been disrupted because of energy shortages or outages because of Russia's military activity, but also, as I said, some of these suspected cyber attacks which have impacted other providers like vias that it's simple, it's quick. We just don't know

how many receivers they've got. We don't know how much service starlink is able to provide, and how as far as we know to Starlink's system compared to the kind of internet you know, and Ukrainian citizen would normally be able to access. Yeah, I think part of the problem with Elon Musk and Starlink and SpaceX is how they communicate. All we're going off is tweets and pictures that have been tweeted. For example, each starlink box costs around five

the services a month. We have no idea how many boxes are being provided, We have no idea who's paying for this. We have no idea if this is just a one off publicity stunt, or if Starling Conula must will continue to support Ukraine throughout this conflict. All we know is that we've done this, They've done this quickly, and if we have a prior example, For example, Starlink provided fifty ground sets to Tonga after that tsunami and earthquake. That really helps some of the remote parts of the

country get back online. So it should be helpful in this case as well. All Right, Ed Ludlow. We're going to continue to follow that story. Thank you. I want to stay on this topic of keeping Ukraine's connected to the Internet and bring in Wendy Whitmore. She is the senior vice president for Unit forty two at Power out or Works and a globally recognized cybersecurity leader. What do you great to have you back with us. I would love it if you could give us a state of play.

What is happening in cyberspace at this stage of war in terms of cyber attacks on Ukraine and on Russian targets. Yes, hi, Emily, great to see you again today. Certainly despite the circumstances. So we are closely monitoring activity that's occurring in Ukraine as well as abroad. In some cases, what we're seeing is what we would expect, so activity targeted at critical

infrastructure and government websites within the Ukraine. We're seeing web defacements, We're seeing wiper mallar that's intended to conduct destructive attacks. What we're anticipating next will be attacks in a broader sphere, so potentially targeted towards Europe and towards the United States and specifically focused on financial services as well. As critical infrastructure. So what kind of increasing chatter are you hearing about in terms of our attacks on the United States, you know,

whether it's businesses or other entities. Well, so, I think that I made a comment about destructive malware attacks, and that's an area that we're certainly focused on. I think the cyber world and many of US defenders are certainly prepared for those types of attacks because they're not unprecedented in the sense we've seen them before. UH, financial services,

critical infrastructure, energy, water and power supply. Those are all areas that we would anticipate that as attacks in the kinetic sphere escalate, we think that we will continue to see those types of attacks targeted specifically towards UH, those entities with the intent of taking services offline, causing disruption,

potentially in retaliation for the sanctions being levied. So give us your take on the threat level, where is it highest, What kinds of businesses, hospitals, healthcare systems are they at risk potentially? So we're certainly seeing that within the Ukraine itself, and you we have that concern that we may see that escalate as we move forward within the the next stages of this attack. So Uh, you know, many of us are familiar with the not petty attacks which occurred

within Ukraine years ago. While I'm not convinced that we are going to see an exact duplication, I think any businesses that had their international organizations with entities and ties to Ukraine certainly need to be prepared to be segmenting their network, be identifying and detecting this type of activity in advance, and really be prepared to detect and respond quickly to the types of attacks we might see moving forward. Now, one of the world's most successful ransomware group was targeted

for aligning itself with Russia. Do you think we're going to see more of this? Well, I think the space

is incredibly dynamic. You're seeing certainly a lot of emotions that are generated rightfully so from what we're seeing going on, and so from that perspective, certainly the tax that occurred against the Conti ransomware gang that you're referring to, I think anytime there's a significant leak of data, we're going to make sure that there's information that can be learned from it and that we can better secure our defenses moving forward based on the information that's learned from that leak,

and obviously it's no secret that Russia is a stronghold for hackers and state sponsored attacks. How can that sort of hub stand up to attacks from around the world. Well, I think that's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. Emily right, We've seen attackers really leverage

information against one another. We've seen a lot of organizations really unified based on this invasion, and one of the things that I'm heartened by actually is that I've never seen the cybersecurity community come together more from the perspective of sharing front intelligence. We have rival organizations who are sharing information very appidly. Certainly a lot of information being shared between the private and public sectors, and I've never seen it at the speed with which we're seeing it.

So I'm cautiously optimistic that that is going to help in this circumstance. So what do you think the next stage is, how do you see cyber warriors, whether from Ukraine, around the world, or inside Russia itself, upping the annie. Well, I think you're going to see a lot of organizations

really banding together to share that information. Our teams are working seven around the clock to make sure that we are understanding specifically what's going on on the ground, but I think as the kinetic warfare on the ground plays out, then many of us anticipated that cyber would have been

the primary domain used already. We're not seeing that as much yet as we expected, so I anticipate that we're going to see that more moving forward, depending upon how the ground war plays out over the coming days and weeks. All right, I wonder what more? Senior Vice president at Polo Alto Network, Twindy, thank you for your perspective on this. Coming up, the role of crypto in the Ukraine War.

We're gonna be joined by aval Labs President John Woo to talk about the responsibility of platforms at this critical moment, the power of crypto for good or bad, and much more. Next Scloomberg, time now for our crypto report. With bitcoin spiking as sanctions on Russia go into effects, Bitcoin rebounding from a weekend sell off, jumping as much as following growing speculation that crypto could be used as another means

of payment in the wake of sanctions against Russia. Joining me now to talk about the role of crypto in the Ukrainian conflict. AVA Labs President John Woo along with Bloomberg Shinnali Bossi, John, thank you so much for joining us. Obviously, we saw a lot of volatility over the weekend, bitcoin spiking. Now talk to us specifically about what you see driving

these moves based on what's happening in Ukraine and Russia. Well, ironically, I think bitcoin has rallied on this false narrative that, um, with sanctions, you know, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are different avenue for Russians to move money around. That's absolutely false and it's incorrect. Um. People like to hold onto this old narrative that you know, bitcoin is a black box and its censorship resistance, but people forget it's a crypto, is transparent,

so it's not a black box. It's actually like an open box, class box where everyone can look inside, see all the transactions and then be able to decipher, you know, if they're abnormal movements around. So I think there's been speculation that caused bitcoin to go up recently, but reality is it's it's not a good way to do fraud.

So that are you saying bitcoin shouldn't be rallying to this extent, to the extent that it's rallying the good reason why it's rally is because crypto has been able, with the speed and efficiency, be able to raise over twenty million dollars for Ukrainian families that needed. It does highlight the technology in a different sense as well. It's speedy, it's scalable, it's also very fast, and it could be

done for a lot of good causes. That said, you've got crypto exchanges under pressure from the public to cut off Russian clients. Jesse Powell, CEO of KRACK, and said they can't do that unless there's a legal requirement to do so. So why shouldn't we imagine that Russian billionaires, for example, could use cryptocurrency to circumvent sanctions on Russia. So I think Jesse has a good point here. Um that would be equivalent if I link it up to your previous UM thing on star Link with Elon Muss.

It could be like, Okay, you're sending bad messages over the Internet, so let's cut off internetfort everyone coming out of the Ukraine and the Russians own. It's impossible to cut off the whole country and know who's a good and who's not a good actor. So from Kraken's perspective or from other exchanges perspective, it would not be right to just cut people off like that, especially when there's good coming out of it, with the twenty million rays

for childerboll causes in Ukraine. You know, John, there's kind of two issues to think about here when we're thinking about what's happening across the world and crypto. One is this idea which I think you're hitting on earlier about

wealthy Russian individuals who are looking to evade sanctions. And then another issue entirely, which is folks who live in Ukraine or people who live in Russia, the ordinary person who wants to move their money into crypto because they're worried about being able to be working with their bank or being able to transact in rubles. How much of a reality is that And do you see people who are in this scenario start move more to crypto because

they need to. Yeah, A lot of the activity I suspect recently in the last couple of days has been very retail driven. There have been third party analytic firms that have done analysis on this and crypto to ruble that exchange about thirty um um thirty I think about thirty billion or thirty about thirty billion has been moved in the last couple of days. Um, that is most likely in the sizes of that that's been moved around

have most likely been from retail. It's definitely not the size of a Russian oligarch or a sovereign doing it. So um, if you look at the data, it suggests that it is retail people doing the flight to safety

because the Russian ruble is down. And historically the adoption of cryptocurrencies in emerging markets where there is a currency that is not doing well has until there was more adoption in Latin America and emerging markets in Middle Eastern emerging markets because is the worry of inflation and the de value currency. So I think in this case it's the same thing, uh, individuals worrying about their local currency devalue.

You know, there's been so much talk about Swift and banning Russia from Swift and certain Russian entities from Swift. How is the crypto community viewing this? And also you know, I wonder John, is there a chance for crypto companies to start joining on to the Swift network instead? So I think first on the first point, UM, most people in the crypto community sympathize with the unfortunate citizens of

the Ukraine. So in order to you know, cut off the way to exchange payment for the oil and gas of Russia is I would be I would be surprised if any crypto people view that that sanction is too harsh. That's the first thing. A second thing is crypto is a very decentralized um concept and abstract, so it's hard for anyone firm or any protocol to just regulate like that. The beauty of it it is decentralized UM. It's transparent, but it's decentralized so that anyone can get access to it.

John At this point, we haven't seen any sanctions impacting the movement of cryptocurrency. But given all of this increased attention, is that something you're expecting. Are you expecting any additional regulation or sanctions that could impact the movement of digital assets? If there were, you would really be hurting individuals in Ukraine and individuals in Russia. You're not going to be

hurting the sovereign state. You're not going to be hurting, you know, the treasury of Russia, which I think has about six billion dollars worth of UM dollars, as well as close to that amount in gold. I would worry about gold more than I would worry about UM crypto, because you really would be cutting the individuals off. All right, interesting port John Wu of Ava Labs, thank you for

bringing us some of that additional context. Along with Bloomberg's a story, we continue to watch Uber is speeding up the sale of its steak in a taxi joint venture with Russian internet search company Yandex. The ride hailing giant will also remove Uber executives from the board of Yandex.

Uber doesn't hold any shares of the publicly traded Yandex entity, but does have a stake in the venture that was valued at about eight hundred million dollars at the end of one but Uber, of course now trying to distance itself from that sale. The pressure on tech companies to use their outside influence to react to Russia's invasion of Ukraine continuing to mount, from social media to streaming to ride sharing, tech companies are enforced to take a stand.

For more on this, I'm joined by Bloomberg Business Weeks, Ashley Vans, and of course the host of Hello World actually great to have you with us. You spent time in Ukraine's third largest city, which is also it's tech hub. What is significant about this place in the context of the war that's happening now and what do we need to know about it? Well, yeah, you know, I went to the cities called Denepro. I went there a couple

of years ago. It's a fascinating place. People might not know, but during the heyday of the Soviet Union, Dnepro was was the major supplier manufacturing hub of the Soviet Union's I C, B M s and then also their most

sophisticated rocket engines and rockets for for space missions. And you know, it has this multi decade um history of just incredible engineers and scientists that live there, some of the best schools in Ukraine, and and so you it's it's uh, it's a fascinating place that really is the heart of Ukraine's engineering prowess. Now, you suggested that this city could become a target given the depth of engineering and science talent. I know you've been calling some of

your sources. What's happening there now? Is it? Is it a target? Yeah? Well, you know, in the first days when the attack began. I was immediately looking to see what was going on. There's a there's a factory they're called Usmash, which is is the factory where all the i CBMs and rockets come out of. There was a question of would the Russians just try to blow it up, would they try to take it over? And and sees

these assets my friends there. Early on there there was a huge explosion that took place on the outskirts of the city. People thought it might be the factory. All the reports that I've seen so far, it seems to be that the factory is safe. The people there are under a lot of pressure. I have friends who were um in public relations who are now you know, making Molotov cocktails and taking up guns, and nobody's really clear on what the Russians want with these assets if the city.

We've been hearing about a number of companies that have been pulling their employees out of Ukraine if they can. Meantime, we're also seeing pressure for companies to cut ties with Russia. As we were just talking about crypto exchanges being asked to kick off their Russian clients. Uber distancing itself for trying to distance itself from yandex. Netflix just came out

today and said we're still going to serve Russia. What do you make of the choices these big global companies are facing about how to use their influence to make it hurt in Russia. It's it's interesting because Russia, along with the U. S and China, is one of the only places that has kind of it's its own Internet where you have all the services you could imagine in the Russian language. So there's some question of we kick off these US and European based services, there are Russian

replacements for all the stuff. You know, I think on the whole US and European companies have had to make compromises for many years now to operate in Russia, and obviously, you know, the state of affairs now puts into question if they're willing to continue to keep making those compromises.

And and just in the last month, Russia has been leaning on the tech companies to make a new set of compromises around you know, having people in Russia behind these services and some of their data, and so, I mean, you know, if every there was a moment for these companies to sort of pick sides and stop making compromises. It would seem like this is it. If anything, we've seen the you know, strength of the Ukrainian people and individuals on the ground rallying. You mentioned your friends making

Molotov cocktails to stand up to this Russian invasion. How do you think this sort of deep bench of engineering and scientific talent and and companies that have been you know, being built in Ukraine for many years now could potentially help this effort. Well, you know, it's sad. I've already seen I cover aerospace a lot, and there's a number of aerospace startups in Internet bro and and their engineers have been pulled out of the country already, two places

like Bulgaria and in some of the surrounding countries for safety. Um, certainly, you know, I mean there's a sense of Russians are obviously very good at computer science, at hacking, and so are the Ukrainians as well, and so I'm sure they can they can lean on that bench of talent there on the whole. It's it's a little sad to see, you know, what's happening to the tech sing because of this. Certainly something we're going to continue to watch. Thank you

for bringing us that side of the story. Bloomberg's actually vanced, and that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology to an In tomorrow, we're gonna be sitting down with Zoom CFO Kelly Steckelberg offer the company's latest earnings report, talked to you about the latest on the war, and much more. This is Bloomberg