Contradictory statements are coming from the US regarding sanctions on Russia. On one hand, Washington is considering plans to ease them, while on the other, it is looking to strengthen restrictive measures.

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.

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,