🛢️ 'Nothing-burgers and mistakes'

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🛢️ 'Nothing-burgers and mistakes'

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Tonight: A primer on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Plus, some riffs on the food industry, as a treat. Let's get into it.

By Allison Morrow

🇺🇦 CRISIS IN UKRAINE

As of Wednesday afternoon, it looked increasingly likely Russia was preparing for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia's military buildup on Ukraine's border is now "at a state of readiness where they could attack at any time," said Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby (pictured above).

A Pentagon official told CNN that 80% of Russian forces at Ukraine's border are in combat-ready positions. Ukrainian lawmakers approved a nationwide state of emergency, and the government's website appeared to be hit with a cyberattack.

Meanwhile, in the United States, President Biden expanded sanctions on a critical Russian pipeline. Wall Street, already jittery over looming Federal Reserve policy changes, retreated from equities, battering all three major stock indexes.

As this extremely complex geopolitical crisis evolves, you can track all the latest news on CNN.

CONFUSED? YOU'RE NOT ALONE...

Trust us, we know the news can be overwhelming and hard to keep track of.

If you need a really simple primer on what exactly Putin wants with Ukraine and what an invasion would mean, I recommend this article by CNN's Eliza Mackintosh, which succinctly breaks down some of the history that led to the current escalation.

Here are some other highlights to help you get caught up on the news.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

For those living far from the front lines, the impact of an invasion will be mostly economic. But the sheer size of Russia's energy industry means a war could derail the global economic recovery.

CNN's Christine Romans writes that investors are preparing for volatility. One strategist told her to expect Russian pushback with three main goals: "Driving much of the West into a high-inflation economic crisis; dividing the US between isolationists and internationalists, and launching a cyberwarfare assault on the US and Kyiv, disrupting everything from ATMs to corporate boardrooms."
President Biden is promising to blunt the impact of rising energy prices on American families. But that won't be easy, my colleague Matt Egan writes. The Russia-Ukraine crisis has already helped lift oil and gasoline prices to levels unseen since 2014.
Further sanctions on Moscow could drive pump prices closer to $4 a gallon.
Key quote: "Biden's options mostly come in two categories: Nothing-burgers and mistakes," said Bob McNally, president of energy consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group. "That's true of almost all presidents."

SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA

The Biden administration rolled out sanctions against some Russian financial institutions as well as the country's wealthy elite, warning that further aggression will be met with additional, more severe punishments. (That first round doesn't appear to have made much of a dent in Putin's mission to reclaim Ukraine by any means necessary.)

But, as CNN's Phil Mattingly writes, the sanctions announced this week included targets that have previously gone untouched: the family members of those in Russian President Vladimir Putin's inner circle. In doing so, Biden sent a clear message that the US will shut down pathways for Putin's associates to shield their wealth.

#️⃣ NUMBER OF THE DAY

$29 million

The trouble with being rich, I imagine, is that you end up in the orbit of other rich people. Take Jes Staley, who resigned as CEO of Barclays in November and who is at least temporarily being deprived of a bonus valued at as much as $29 million. A bonus.

Anyway, Barclays is withholding the payout while regulators investigate Staley's links to Jeffery Epstein, the convicted child sex trafficker who killed himself while awaiting trial in 2019.

🥫 FOOD NEWS

Time for a good old fashioned Nightcap roundup of all the news that's fit to eat. Let's dig in.

🥡 DELIVERY DILEMMA

I'll start this story with a confession: I have, more times than I care to admit, both pre- and mid-pandemic, ordered delivery from restaurants within one block of my apartment.

I'm neither proud nor particularly apologetic about this, especially because delivery became a lifeline for the local restaurants I wanted to support when the lockdowns happened.

But now, reporting by my colleague Danielle Wiener-Bronner has me thinking that next time I might just get off my couch and actually walk the 50 feet from my door to my favorite sushi spot.

Here's the deal: Delivery is a huge, very expensive pain in the ass for restaurants. Drivers and delivery services like DoorDash or Grubhub cut into already razor-thin margins. And staff are having to juggle online and in-store orders, all while getting yelled at for late deliveries that are not at all in their control.

Buuuuut I'm not about to delete my Seamless app for good. Businesses have to figure out how to adapt to consumers' lazy, tech-adled lifestyles. This is capitalism, baby!

Danielle has more on how restaurants are trying to do that, in some cases by incentivizing customers to pick up their own food, or (surprise) raising prices.

🍅 MARKETING IS A LIE

Heinz has been peddling its "57 varieties" slogan for a century. It's ingrained in the brand. It's right there on the label of your ketchup bottle.

And it is 100% meaningless. Made up. Fiction. A marketing move that's been fooling the masses for decades.

There are competing theories about where it comes from, but Heinz's brand director said the company's founder felt there was something "mystical, magical, and memorable" about the number 57, which was a combination of five, his lucky number, and seven, his wife's lucky number, my colleague Nathaniel Meyersohn reports.

What's next, you're gonna tell me Baskin Robbins has more than 31 flavors? (It does). Is Cap'n Crunch even in the navy? I bet Dr. Pepper is just some yahoo with a Ph.D in comparative literature, too.

🥤 PEPSI STOUT?

Pepsi is taking a page from the Guinness playbook, rolling out a nitrogen-infused cola with a smoother and creamier taste than typical sodas. "Nitro Pepsi" will hit store shelves in late March.

Speaking of booze and soda, Pepsi also launched HARD MTN DEW – there is no world in which that branding wasn't going to be all caps – in Tennessee, Florida and Iowa this week.

All of that comes as the beverage industry is trying to figure out ways to hook legions of young people who are more likely to order a sugar-free seltzer than an old school soda. My colleague Jordan Valinsky has more.

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

📱 The Trump social media app, called "Truth Social," had a fairly disastrous debut, receiving a a flurry of one-star ratings, technical-support complaints and a massive waiting list. Still, the company's stock soared 10% on Tuesday, finishing just shy of a record high. (It was down nearly 5% Wednesday.)

⚖️ Two top prosecutors working on the Manhattan district attorney's criminal investigation into the Trump Organization resigned Wednesday.

🧥 The Kanye West/Gap/Balenciaga collaboration – a combination of words I never expected to type all together like that – released a preview of its 25-piece collection, which includes a $440 denim jacket.

⚽ The US Women's National Team reached a historic $24 million settlement with American soccer's governing body over a long history unequal pay.