(Bloomberg) —
Russian forces have renewed air attacks on the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol and are trying to storm it, two days after President Vladimir Putin said there was no need to. Russia was also shelling Odesa on Saturday. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy responded after a Russian general said Moscow aims to take control of southern Ukraine, saying it confirmed his belief that Moscow never intended to stop at the Donbas.
The United Nations secretary-general will have meetings with both President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin next week as the world body seeks urgent steps toward peace.
Ukraine pressed its case for Western aid over several days at the World Bank/International Monetary Fund spring meetings in Washington.
(See RSAN on the Bloomberg Terminal for the Russian Sanctions Dashboard.)
Key Developments
- Abramovich at Risk of U.S. Sanctions as Peace Talks Sputter Out
- Germany Faces Recession If War in Ukraine Leads to Energy Ban
- U.S., EU Discuss Options to Wean Europe From Russian Oil Imports
- Kremlin Seeks Control of Southern Ukraine, Russian General Says
- Propaganda War Over Mariupol’s Destruction Is Only Just Starting
- NATO Entry or Not, Finland’s Finance Chief Vows Defense Focus
All times CET:
Russian Missile Strikes on Odesa (3:01 p.m.)
At least one person was killed in a Russian missile strike on Odesa on Saturday, Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on his Telegram channel.
A residential building and an unspecified military target were hit, military authorities said, after six cruise missiles were launched from TU-95 long-range bombers. Some missiles were intercepted and liquidated, Herashchenko said.
Odesa, a key Black Sea port and Ukraine’s third-largest city, has seen sporadic shelling from Russia over the two-month war.
Curfews in Lviv, Elsewhere for Orthodox Easter (2:20 p.m.)
Regional governors, including from the far western Lviv region, urged people to stay at home as much as possible during the Orthodox Easter, citing information on possible Russian air strikes.
Curfews will typically run from 11 p.m. Saturday night until 5 a.m. Sunday. Lviv’s regional governor cited new intelligence for the directive. In Mykolaiv, a curfew was announced starting at 7 p.m.
Europe Must Prepare to Sustain Sanctions Long-Term: German FinMin (2:05 p.m.)
Europe needs to be prepared to sustain sanctions against Russia “for months, maybe for many years, and with some probability, maybe permanently,” Germany’s finance minister said.
Christian Lindner said “the danger of stagflation is real” for Germany as it grapples with the potential for an embargo against Russian oil that many in Europe favor. “This is a danger of impoverishment for many people.”
His comments came a day after Germany’s central bank warned the nation is in danger of recession this year if an embargo on Russian coal, oil and gas leads to restrictions on power providers and industry.
Read more: Germany Faces Recession If Ukraine War Leads to Energy Ban
Poland Plans Anti-Russia Media Campaign in Western Europe (12:52 p.m.)
Poland will rent out billboards in western Europe in a bid to strengthen public support for further sanctions against Russia.
The “Stop Russia Now” campaign, which will also extend to social media, will be a “scream from those, who were brutally murdered” across Ukraine, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters in Warsaw. He singled out Germany, Italy, Austria and France as countries that can do more to support Ukraine.
Almost 3 million Ukrainians have crossed into Poland since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24. In recent days more have returned. Poland’s border service showed 17,700 travelers cleared for entry on Friday, against 23,800 who left Poland for Ukraine.
Ukraine Says Fighting Continues in Mariupol (12:25 p.m.)
Russian forces resumed airstrikes in their latest attempt to dislodge Ukrainian fighters holed up at Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant, Ukrainian presidential spokesman Oleksiy Arestovych said in video statement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said Russia had captured the city, and ordered the steelworks sealed off — but that the complex shouldn’t be stormed. There was “no need to get into those catacombs and crawl there under ground,” Putin said.
Even so, the U.K. Defense Ministry says heavy fighting continues. Some 2,000 Ukrainians troops and many civilians continue to shelter in the Azovstal complex. Civilian evacuations from the mostly destroyed city were scheduled to resume.
Ukrainian Officials Meet with IMF’s Georgieva (10:42 a.m.)
Ukrainian officials including Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko and central bank Governor Kyrylo Shevchenko met with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva in Washington on Friday to discuss further short-term aid and long-term renewal.
Read more: Ukraine Sees Rebuild Costing $600 Billion as It Seeks Global Aid
Ukraine to Try More Mariupol Evacuations (10:05 a.m.)
Ukraine will attempt again to evacuate woman, children and elderly people from in and around Mariupol around noon local time, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
The planned movement of vulnerable civilians out of the heavily-bombed city has been scrapped several times because of the inability to guarantee safe passage. “Corridors have been broken so many times. But you and I should try as many times as necessary until it works,” Vereshchuk said Friday on Telegram.
Some 2,000 Ukrainians troops, plus civilians including children, remain holed up in city’s Azovstal steel works, which Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered to be sealed off.
World Cooking Oil Supplies Under Threat (8:35 a.m.)
Indonesia is set to ban exports of cooking oil in the face of a local shortage, adding to shortages that have followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — a key supplier of sunflower oil.
The BBC reported Friday that some U.K. supermarkets are limiting how much cooking oil customers can buy as supplies run short.
Zelenskiy Says Russia’s Invasion ‘Only a Beginning’ (8:05 a.m.)
The war on Ukraine was just the start, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late Friday after comments by a Russian commander that Moscow wants control of all of southern Ukraine.
“This only confirms what I have said many times: the Russian invasion of Ukraine was intended only as a beginning, then they want to capture other countries,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “Who is next?”
On Friday, a Russian general said the Kremlin aims to secure control of the entire south of Ukraine, create a land bridge to Transnistria, a pro-Russian region of Moldova, and assume control of key Black Sea ports.
Fighting Around Mariupol Hasn’t Stopped, U.K. Says (7:02 a.m.)
“Despite their stated conquest of Mariupol, heavy fighting continues to take place, frustrating Russian attempts to capture the city, thus further slowing their desired progress in the Donbas,” the U.K. defense ministry said in an intelligence update.
Russian troops “have made no major gains” in the east over the past day in the face of Ukrainian counter-attacks and effective air and sea defence, the U.K. said.
Ukraine is conducting a counteroffensive north of Kharkiv and took control of three settlements, said regional governor Oleh Synehubov. Two civilians were killed and 19 injured by shelling in the Kharkiv region. The Black Sea city of Odesa has been under intense shelling on Saturday, military officials said.
Guterres to Meet Zelenskiy in Ukraine (3:10 a.m.)
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres plans to meet with Zelenskiy in Ukraine next week, the UN announced on Friday. He was already scheduled to go to Moscow to see Putin and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. On the trip, Guterres and staff members plan to discuss stepping up humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians affected by the war, the UN said.
Russia Says 1 Dead, 27 Missing in Moskva Sinking (10:37 p.m.)
Russia’s Defense Ministry said one sailor died and 27 people remain missing after last week’s sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of its Black Sea fleet. Russia says the ship sank in a storm while it was being towed back to port after fires broke out on board.
Ukraine’s military says the ship, whose normal crew was thought to be close to 500, sunk after being hit by Neptune missiles. The U.S. has backed Ukraine’s account.
Co-Heads of Russia’s Biggest Digital Lender Quit (8:58 p.m.)
The co-heads of Russia’s biggest digital lender quit to start a fintech focused on emerging markets in Southeast Asia days after the bank’s founder, sanctioned billionaire Oleg Tinkov, slammed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as an “insane war.”
Oliver Hughes and Pavel Fedorov, the former co-chief executive officers of TCS Group Holding Plc, are currently fundraising with venture capital firms and sovereign wealth funds, with the aim of closing the round by June, Fedorov said from Abu Dhabi.
Britain Weighs Sending Tanks to Poland (8:35 p.m.)
The U.K.’s ministry of defense said it is “exploring sending British Challenger 2 tanks” to Poland, to help “bridge the gap between Poland donating tanks to Ukraine and replacements arriving.”
UN’s Guterres Will See Putin, Lavrov Next Week (6:43 p.m.)
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will “be received by” Putin in Moscow on April 26 and will have a working lunch with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, according to statements from the UN and the Kremlin.
Guterres earlier this week asked for separate meetings with Putin and Zelenskiy to discuss “urgent steps” for peace.
EU Chief Sought to Confront Putin With Truths, Official Says (5:55 p.m.)
The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, told Russian President Putin what an EU official called some brutal truths about the war in Ukraine during a call Friday. Michel, who chairs EU summits, believes Putin’s entourage doesn’t brief him fully about events, according to the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss confidential talks.
Michel told Putin that the Russian leader had been wrong about his expectations that the war would last 48 hours, divide EU members and fail to trigger heavy economic sanctions. According to the Kremlin’s readout, Putin reiterated Moscow’s public line, criticizing what it called “irresponsible statements of EU officials on the need to resolve the situation in Ukraine militarily” and the bloc’s “ignoring of numerous war crimes by Ukrainian forces.”
Estonia Wards Off Cyber-Attacks With Links to Russian Hackers (5:23 p.m.)
Estonia has fended off a wave of cyber-attacks believed to be launched by a pro-Kremlin hacker group targeting Ukraine supporters. Around 700 million denial-of-service attacks mainly from outside of Europe were launched against the websites of the Estonian president, foreign ministry, police and public services agencies on Thursday and Friday, the Estonian Computer Emergency Response Team said.
The impact has so far been minimal, the authority said. The website of a NATO cybersecurity center in Estonia, which this week hosted a global exercise with 2,000 participants from 32 countries, was among the websites that were temporarily down. The pro-Kremlin hacker group Killnet has claimed to be behind the attacks, a military spokeswoman said on Friday.
Halliburton Says It Must End Some Deals in Russia by May 15 (5:13 p.m.)
Halliburton Co. said that sanctions imposed by the U.S., the EU and other nations require the company to wind down certain contracts in Russia by May 15.
The company also said that the total net book value of its assets in Russia is about $340 million, and warned the invasion of Ukraine and related sanctions could cause the company to take a charge related to those assets.
EU Suggests Companies Should Keep Paying for Russia Gas in Euros (5:03 p.m.)
The European Union has suggested that companies could keep paying for gas in euros, as it published guidance that Moscow’s decree calling for payment in rubles would violate sanctions.
The commission confirmed a preliminary assessment that the decree would run against European sanctions imposed on Russia. It also said the decree doesn’t automatically preclude allowing companies to continue paying in euros, and the scope for exemptions is not yet clear. The commission advised companies to seek confirmation from Moscow that this was possible.
U.S. Leaves World Bank-IMF Meeting in Protest as Russia Speaks (4:46 p.m.)
Officials representing the U.S., Germany, Japan, and other nations walked out of a joint World Bank-International Monetary Fund gathering on Friday when Russia’s envoy started speaking, the second such action at a high-profile gathering in Washington this week, people familiar with the situation said.
The representatives were attending a meeting of the institution’s development committee, according to the people, who declined to be identified because the gathering is private. The committee is a ministerial-level forum of the World Bank and the IMF for intergovernmental consensus-building on development issues and has 25 members, usually ministers of finance or development, according to its website.
Russia Faces ‘Reverse Industrialization’ Amid Sanctions (2:11 p.m.)
Russia faces a deep and prolonged economic contraction along with higher inflation and reduced living standards, as sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies sap it of vital products and technology, according to economists at the central bank.
In its most detailed public statement on the outlook since the war started, the Bank of Russia warned that “the depth of the contraction may be quite significant and exit trajectory drawn out in time” because the supply shocks triggered by sanctions are unlikely to fade quickly. It said Russia would experience “reverse industrialization” as sanctions forced it to seek lower-tech replacements for western goods that were cut off.
General Says Kremlin Seeks Full Control of Southern Ukraine (11:04 a.m.)
A top general said the Kremlin aims to secure control of the entire south of Ukraine as well as the eastern Donbas region, Russia’s state-run Tass and RIA Novosti reported.
Major General Rustam Minnekayev, deputy commander of Russia’s Central Military District, spoke in Ekaterinburg. It’s unclear whether his statements reflect official Kremlin objectives.
Russia wants to create a land bridge to Crimea as well to influence key aspects of Ukraine’s economy, including major Black Sea ports, he said. Ultimately the Kremlin wants access to Moldova’s pro-Russian breakaway region of Transnistria, which lies to the northwest of Odesa.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
