Overall, extreme levels of fear in the market seems to have morphed into something more resembling concern. For example, the Cboe Volatility Index fell from its 2022 peak of 36, which it hit Monday, to around 30 on Friday, a sign of easing tensions. Meanwhile, while the price of WTI crude oil slipped from Sunday’s multiyear high $130 of barrel to $109 a pop. Markets have been expecting heavy restrictions on Russian oil, some of which the U.S. has already imposed, and that would reduce the global supply and bring about even more burdensome inflation. But the Ukraine Crisis Media Center's Tsekhanovska points out that communications are often down in zones most affected by the war, making this sort of cross-referencing a luxury many cannot afford. "Russians are really disconnected from the reality of what happening to their country," Andrey said. "So Telegram has become essential for understanding what's going on to the Russian-speaking world." Stocks dropped on Friday afternoon, as gains made earlier in the day on hopes for diplomatic progress between Russia and Ukraine turned to losses. Technology stocks were hit particularly hard by higher bond yields. On February 27th, Durov posted that Channels were becoming a source of unverified information and that the company lacks the ability to check on their veracity. He urged users to be mistrustful of the things shared on Channels, and initially threatened to block the feature in the countries involved for the length of the war, saying that he didn’t want Telegram to be used to aggravate conflict or incite ethnic hatred. He did, however, walk back this plan when it became clear that they had also become a vital communications tool for Ukrainian officials and citizens to help coordinate their resistance and evacuations.
from sg
