Russia has repeatedly painted modern Ukraine as a Nazi state, in a crass distortion of history. Putin had already seized Ukraine's Crimean peninsula eight years earlier, after a revolution that ousted Ukraine's pro-Russian president and replaced him with a more pro-Western government.

President Trump is looking for more than just a mineral deal with Ukraine. Trump wants Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to change his attitude toward peace talks and to have a willingness to make concessions to Russia,

Now America is attempting to force a resolution to the war, investors must try to gauge the consequences of its success or failure. The most obvious shifts have been in the markets for European assets,