Four years into its Ukraine invasion, the Kremlin’s economy faces a worsening outlook that is graver than publicly acknowledged, Russian banking officials told us. The probability of a systemic banking crisis arising within the next 12 months is significant. 

Strains within the banking system could raise wider questions for President Vladimir Putin’s ability to continue the war, especially if Kyiv’s US and European allies were to target the Russian financial sector with harsher sanctions. The European Union is currently discussing fresh restrictions on more Russian banks.

The bankers raised the alarm just a day after European leaders approved a historic commitment to boost defense spending. Meanwhile, the US is considering new air-defense batteries to help Ukraine defend itself against the ongoing assault. --Jonathan Tirone

What You Need to Know Today

Iranian missiles fired against Israel inflicted some $3 billion of damages, required to fix buildings and compensate businesses. The calculations shared by the Israeli finance ministry and tax body this week indicate the extent to which Iran broke through Israel’s defenses during nearly two weeks of rocket fire. Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed victory in the war and said the US’s intervention achieved nothing, in his first comments since a ceasefire came into effect Tuesday. The location of Iran’s highly-enriched uranium stockpile still hasn’t been determined. 

Former Barclay’s boss Jes Staley lost a legal battle to overturn his ban from UK finance over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, all but ending his attempt to rehabilitate himself in the British financial services industry. A London judge sided with the Financial Conduct Authority, ruling that the executive misled officials about the nature of the banker’s relationship with the late pedophile financier.

Jes Staley departs from The Rolls Building in London in March. Photographer: Jaimi Joy/Bloomberg

Climate tech is not the hot investor thesis it once was but it’s still poised to transform power markets. After several record breaking years, and billions of dollars being poured into climate startups, venture capital investments are way down. This week on our Zero podcast, Akshat Rathi speaks with Mike Schroepfer, who runs Gigascale Capital, a venture firm focusing on climate investments, and used to be Meta’s chief technology officer.

A billionaire Botox-rival heir controlling drug maker Ipsen changed her residency from the UK to Switzerland, as plans for a generational shift in ownership take shape. Anne Beaufour, 61, granddaughter of the founder of the nearly century-old company, made the change as of mid-March, according to a UK company filing. Shares in Ipsen — which makes medicines and an anti-wrinkle rival to Botox called Dysport — have risen more than four-fold in the two decades since the clan sold stock in an initial public offering.

An Ipsen site in Les Ulis, France.

Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK would be the biggest party in parliament if the country held a general election today, according to a nationwide projection, underlining the political danger to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Reform would win 271 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, with Starmer’s governing Labour party second on 178, polling firm YouGov said today. That would leave a hung parliament in which no party could govern alone. Check out our In the City podcast to learn more about whether Reform is ready to take charge. 

The highest concentration of cocaine users live in Australia and New Zealand, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in its latest report, underscoring that global consumption of the illicit drug is reaching record highs, While more people use cocaine in the Americas than anywhere else, per-capita consumption is most prevalent in Australia and New Zealand. Some 3% of those aged 15 to 64 in Australia and New Zealand used cocaine in 2023, the report said. That’s almost double the proportion in the Americas, and nearly triple the percentage in Europe — the next-biggest consumers of the drug, the report said.

What You’ll Need to Know Tomorrow

For Your Commute

As the US celebrated Black History Month in February, Ben & Jerry’s crafted a social media post on keeping the racial-equality fight going even as President Donald Trump rolled back diversity initiatives. It never saw the light of day. The post was nixed by Ben & Jerry’s’ parent company Unilever Plc, people told us. The Anglo-Dutch multinational’s actions are raising questions about the future of the campaigning tradition it pledged to protect when it bought Ben & Jerry’s a quarter century ago