On February 24th, Russia started a military invasion of Ukraine. Putin declared war on Ukraine because Russia could no longer feel "secure, develop, or exist" as a result of Ukraine's attempt to join NATO. The entire world was stunned, and the conflict is still having a significant socioeconomic impact.

The United States and the nations of the EU criticized Putin’s decision, and they agreed to put severe economic sanctions on Russia. This includes the elimination of Russian banks from the SWIFT global bank payments system, and this would cut off the majority of global transactions which involve the Russian Ruble. This resulted in the Russian Ruble’s value plummeting, and currently, 1 Ruble is less than a cent. Russian stock market also experienced a crash, and the stock market was closed due to the fall of the Ruble. Russia’s reaction to this crash was rising the base rate to 20% from 9%, and this shows the volatility of the Russian economy in the global society. Due to this volatility, there has been a huge money inflow to the cryptocurrency market from Russian citizens. Russian citizens are believing that the decentralized systems of cryptocurrencies are more stable than the Russian Ruble.

In addition, the trend of investment is moving towards safe assets with comparatively lower risks. High-risk assets which include stocks, cryptocurrencies, and high-yield bonds have experienced a fall on the 24th, and low-risk assets such as gold and oil have skyrocketed. Especially, Russia is a big supplier of oil, and the absence of Russia in the global market caused the scarcity of oil to increase. Though high-risk assets are recovering, oil and gold price is very bullish, and people’s tendency of low-risk assets are rising rapidly.

These impacts indicate a negative trend in a global society, with people becoming pessimistic and shifting their investments to less risky sectors of the economy. One bright spot is the fact that Russia and Ukraine are seeking to reach an agreement to end the conflict. The two countries should reach an armistice as soon as possible, causing the least amount of damage to the world.

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