They have brought destruction, looting, babu88bd starvation, and disease upon the Ukrainian people from 1991 through the present. In Mariupol, the company Metinvest, controlled by the billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, owns two large steel mills, as well as other facilities that together reportedly employ 40,000 people. Several large mining companies are located in Kryvyi Rih, known as the "longest city" in Europe, which is located in the Dnipropetrovsk Region. Many European nations had come to be reliant on Ukraine for feed grains (barley, corn, etc.) which are now cut off. Before Feb. 25-27 (the dates of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the launching by NATO nations of the "nuclear option" sanctions) the U.S. On March 1, 2021, the United Kingdom imposed sanctions against the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and its head Kirill Dmitriev. Nuclear: Nuclear energy is another Russian (and Ukrainian) high-tech capability that is being targeted by the sanctions. With 16,000 employees, the Ukrainian Space Agency nearly matches NASA’s size. Russia also built a landing platform called Kazachok that will have to be replaced. Medicine: In Aug. 2020, Russia became the first country to announce the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, the two-shot Sputnik V, and a while later, the one-shot Sputnik Light.