Russia to lose 'most favoured nation status' over Ukraine

[LVIV] The United States, together with the Group of Seven nations and the European Union, will move on Friday to revoke Russia's "most favoured nation" status over its invasion of Ukraine, multiple people familiar with the situation told Reuters.

Stripping Russia of its favoured nation status paves the way for the United States and its allies to impose tariffs on a wide range of Russian goods, which would ratchet up pressure on an economy already heading into a recession.

Removing Russia's status of "Permanent Normal Trade Relations" with the United States would significantly escalate pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the largest conflict in Europe since World War Two.

The US Senate voted on Thursday to approve legislation providing US$13.6 billion to help Ukraine finance ammunition and other military supplies, as well as humanitarian support.

Biden had on Tuesday imposed an immediate ban on Russian oil and energy imports.

The European Union will not impose sanctions on Russian gas or oil, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in a video posted on his Facebook page on Friday, amid a summit of EU leaders in France.

Washington's moves to tighten the screws on Moscow come as US and European officials accuse Russia of war crimes over its bombardment of civilians in Ukrainian cities, amid repeated violations of ceasefires in which each side blames on the other.

Russia's defence ministry said it would declare a ceasefire on Friday and open humanitarian corridors from Mariupol as well as Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Mariupol and Chernihiv, although previous ceasefires have failed.

About 222,000 people have been evacuated to Russia from Ukraine and its two Russian-backed rebel regions, the TASS news agency said on Friday, citing an unidentified source.

Satellite images showed a Russian military column threatening Kyiv from the north had dispersed to new positions, private US company Maxar Technologies said, possibly in preparation for an assault on the capital.

On Friday, three air strikes in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro killed at least one person, state emergency services said, adding that the strikes were close to a kindergarten and an apartment building.

Russian troops launched a high-precision, long-range attack on two military airfields in the Ukrainian cities of Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk and took them out of action, Russian news agencies quoted defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov as saying on Friday.

He also said that Russian forces had destroyed 3,213 Ukrainian military installations since the launch of what Russia calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine.

Russian-backed separatists have captured the Ukrainian city of Volnovakha north of the besieged Azov Sea port of Mariupol, the RIA news agency quoted Russia's defence ministry as saying.

Volnovakha is strategically important as the northern gateway to Mariupol.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the biggest assault on a European country since World War Two. Moscow calls its actions in Ukraine a "special operation" to disarm Ukraine and unseat leaders it calls neo-Nazis. Ukraine and Western allies call this a baseless pretext for a war of choice that has raised fears of wider conflict in Europe. REUTERS