Mariupol ceasefire said to be broken again

[MARIUPOL] An evacuation from the southern city of Mariupol has been halted for a second day, with Ukrainian officials claiming that Russia again violated a temporary ceasefire deal brokered to allow the safe passage of civilians.

An aid group called conditions in the city "catastrophic". Over 1.5 million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion, the UN said on Sunday (Mar 6), chiefly to Poland and Moldova.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said diplomatic efforts in the lead-up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine were doomed to fail, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion was now "sinking further into a sordid campaign of war crimes and unthinkable violence against civilians". Writing in the New York Times, Johnson said the conflict would not become a Nato one.

Kyiv and Moscow indicated more talks could happen on Monday. Any negotiations face huge hurdles, including on potential humanitarian corridors.

Putin signed a decree on Saturday allowing Russia and Russian companies to pay some of their foreign creditors in roubles, in a bid to avoid defaults.

The planned evacuation of tens of thousands of people from the southern port city of Mariupol has been halted for a second day, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister said. Russian troops opened fire, violating a temporary ceasefire agreement, Anton Herashchenko said on his Telegram channel.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders has described the situation in Mariupol as "catastrophic".

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the number of foreigners who have applied to come and fight for Ukraine was nearing 20,000. The government recently set up a website for potential volunteers and waived visa requirements for those coming in.

Ukraine was monitoring the potential for Belarusian troops to join Russia in its attack on the country, Kuleba said. So far that has not happened but it remains a risk, he added.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video posted by his office that shelling continued in residential areas of cities including Kharkiv, Ukraine's second biggest, and Chernihiv, north of Kyiv. He accused Russia of planning to bomb the major port city of Odessa in the south, without elaborating.

The BBC's global news channel, BBC World News, has been taken off air in Russia, the organisation reported on its website. The move follows last Friday's decision by the British national broadcaster to temporarily halt the work of its journalists and support staff in Russia following a law passed there that criminalises independent reporting in the country.

Moody's Investors Service cut Russia's long-term issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings to "Ca" from "B3" on expectations that new capital controls by the Central Bank of Russia will restrict cross border payments, including for debt service on government bonds. Less than a week ago, Moody's stripped Russia of its investment grade rating.

The Bank of Russia will temporarily reduce the amount of information commercial banks are required to publish in an effort to limit the risks from international sanctions. Starting from the statements for February, banks will no longer have to release accounts prepared to national standards or any additional disclosures on their websites, the central bank said in statement.

The US will invest US$18 million to help Moldova increase its energy security and reduce its dependence on Russia, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Chisinau on Sunday.

Blinken also said the US supports Moldova's bid to join the EU. Moldova officially requested to begin the accession procedure last week, a process that could last more than a decade. The 27 EU leaders meeting outside Paris on March 10-11 will discuss the bloc's enlargement, and specifically the recent requests by Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova. The requests could further antagonise Putin as the eastern countries seek closer ties with the west.

Poland is yet to hold talks with the US about potentially supplying fighter jets to Ukraine or getting replacements from the US in the event it did so, according to a Polish official with direct knowledge of the matter. The government in Warsaw has previously downplayed the possibility of sending fighter jets in, and expressed concern that doing so could drag it, and potentially Nato, into a broader conflict with Russia.

"We're looking actively now at the question of airplanes that Poland may provide to to Ukraine and looking at how we might be able to backfill," Blinken said on Sunday in Moldova.

A source familiar with internal White House deliberations noted that Eastern European countries do not have large-sized fighter jet fleets to begin with, and anything they sent to Ukraine would leave them exposed at home. The process of supplying F-16s to them as replacements could take a long time, let alone adding on retrofitting and providing training, the source added.

More than 1.5 million people have crossed from Ukraine to neighbouring countries in the past 10 days, Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, tweeted on Sunday. He called it the "fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II".

More than 60 per cent have fled to Poland, where authorities estimate 922,400 people had crossed the border as at early Sunday, and Moldova, to where more than 250,000 have fled, according to President Maia Sandu. Smaller numbers have travelled to Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and other EU countries, as well as to Russia itself. BLOOMBERG