Good morning. Two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western sanctions have failed in their most important task—stopping the Kremlin’s war machine.

Western officials and experts say the financial, economic, military and energy sanctions imposed on Russia since February 2022 have damaged Russia’s economy and arms-production capacity, and will create serious problems for the Kremlin in the coming years. But they acknowledge the restrictions have hit more slowly than they hoped.

• More coming: This week, Western countries are adopting new sanctions against Russia. The U.K. on Wednesday sanctioned six Russians it said were involved in the death of leading opposition figure Alexei Navalny, disclosed on Feb. 16. Washington plans to announce U.S. measures over Navalny’s death on Friday. On Thursday, in response to the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, London also set forth new sanctions aimed at Russia’s commodities and armaments sector.
   
• Russian evasion: For Russia, dodging sanctions has become a priority. The Kremlin has directed Russian intelligence services to find channels for evasion and backfilling, Western officials say. Moscow has increased trade with China, India and other countries not subscribing to the Western measures, helping it sell energy and secure the supply of critical imports for the war.
   
• Mixed results: U.S. and European officials say that their sanctions have deprived Russia of around 400 billion euros in revenue they would otherwise have had since February 2022. The Kremlin, meanwhile, is setting up a full-blown war economy. Russia has boosted its military budget by nearly 70% this year, to a post-Soviet record of more than $100 billion.

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U.S. Justice Department hires first chief artificial intelligence officer.

The U.S. Justice Department has named a Princeton University academic as its first chief artificial intelligence officer and chief science and technology adviser.

Jonathan Mayer, a computer scientist and lawyer, will serve as one of the primary policy advisers to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Justice Department leadership on issues that require technical expertise, particularly those related to artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and other areas of emerging technology. He will also lead the department’s technological capacity-building efforts, such as advising on technical talent recruitment and helping to advise on issues related to emerging technologies, both across the department and with other federal agencies.

• Nvidia Declares AI a ‘Whole New Industry’—and Investors Agree

Head of Russia's VTB Bank hit with charges.

Andrey Kostin, the head of Russia’s state-owned VTB Bank, faces U.S. charges for allegedly violating sanctions.

Prosecutors on Thursday unsealed charges in a federal court in New York against Kostin and two others for allegedly participating in schemes to violate sanctions the U.S. imposed on Kostin in 2018.

U.S. to Russia: No nukes in space.

The U.S. has privately warned Russia not to deploy a new nuclear-armed antisatellite weapon, which it said would violate the Outer Space Treaty and jeopardize U.S. national security interests, U.S. officials said.

The rare outreach by top U.S. national security and intelligence officials is part of a diplomatic campaign that the Biden administration is mounting to head off the threat that also involves approaches to China, India, G-7 nations and other close allies that have interests in space and channels to Moscow.

• The eurozone continued to climb out of its economic downturn in February despite a bleak outlook for the key industrial sector in Germany.
   
• China’s reported ban on the net sales of equities during market opens and closes theoretically makes it easier to prop up reeling stocks.
   
• Nestlé reported weaker-than-expected results and warned of slower sales growth this year as higher prices prompted shoppers to ease spending. 

• Small businesses turned to alternative funding options like merchant cash advances in recent years. Such borrowing has now led to the deaths of some of these operations.
   
• After more than 20 years of debate, private-equity firms are about to be drafted into the fight against dirty money.
   
• With the potential for more business technology consolidation in 2024, CIOs say they’re worried about being sold bigger product suites at higher costs.
   

🎧 Listen to Ken Calwell, CEO of the organization behind the “He Gets Us” Jesus-focused ad campaign, discuss how he applied his corporate marketing experience to the nonprofit.

• Google suspended the ability to generate images of people in its flagship chatbot following an online backlash around the tool’s treatment of race and ethnicity.
   
• As the White House weighs unilateral measures it can take to stem illegal border crossings, officials are running into two familiar hurdles: opposition from their own party and challenges in court.
   
• Yale University will once again require prospective students to submit standardized test scores after making tests optional for the past four years.
   
• The new hot climate investment is heat itself.

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