Putin Defense Changes & Europe's Gas Monopoly

Your morning briefing, the business news you need in just 15 minutes.

On today's podcast:

(1) Vladimir Putin replaced his long-serving defense minister with a trained economist in an unexpected change of guard that signals the focus on growing the Russian war economy more than two years after the invasion of Ukraine.

(2) Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on his people not to panic amid Russia's ongoing advance in the Kharkiv region that's jeopardizing a local city.

(3) Rishi Sunak will pitch himself as the best candidate to achieve a "more secure future" for Britain in a political speech designed to re-capture the narrative ahead of the UK general election, just over a week after his party suffered heavy losses in local votes.

(4) President Joe Biden will quadruple tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and sharply increase levies for other key industries this week, unveiling the measures at a White House event framed as a defense of American workers, people familiar with the matter said.

(5) the Norwegian oil and gas giant Equinor has quietly picked up the crown that once belonged to Russia's Gazprom . Norway now supplies 30% of the bloc's gas; Gazprom provided about 35% of all Europe's gas before the war. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.