March 2, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The White House detailed a new slate of economic measures levied against Russia and allied Belarus Wednesday, blasting Belarus for “enabling Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.” 

Among Wednesday’s actions are new restrictions extending export control policies to Belarus, preventing diversion of tech and software to Russia through the country, which the administration said “will severely limit the ability of Russia and Belarus to obtain the materials they need to support their military aggression against Ukraine, project power in ways that threaten regional stability and undermine global peace and security.” 

In addition, the US and allies are identifying 22 Russian “defense-related entities,” including firms that provide technological and material support for Russia’s military.

The US and allies are also targeting “technology exports” in the oil refining sector, which they say could help the US move toward its goal of “degrading Russia’s status as a leading energy supplier over time. 

The US also details new sanctions on entities affiliated with Russian and Belarusian military forces and points to US President Joe Biden’s announcement last night banning Russian aircrafts from domestic US airspace.

As the violence in Ukraine intensifies, athletes and sports organizations around the world are responding. 

Here are a few examples of the ways in which the world of sports is handling the conflict.

Motorsports governing body suspends licenses issued to Russia and Belarus: Motorsport UK announced on Wednesday that the licenses issued to Russia and Belarus have been suspended "with immediate effect."The governing body for four-wheel in the UK said that no Russian and Belarusian licensed teams are approved to enter competitions in the country or participate in motorsports events. In addition, no Russian and Belarusian national symbols, colors, flags on uniforms, equipment and cars will be displayed at Motorsport UK permitted events.

NHL’s Senators will play Ukrainian national anthem prior to all home games

The National Hockey League's Ottawa Senators have pledged to play the Ukrainian national anthem ahead of the opening face-off at every remaining home game this season.

To show support for the “valiant efforts of the Ukrainian people,” Senators owner Eugene Melnyk announced Wednesday that the Ukrainian anthem will be played along with the Canadian and US national anthems.

The Senators have 13 regular-season games remaining. The team’s next home game is March 10.

"We are all Ukrainians,” said Melnyk, who is Canadian and said his parents are from Ukraine.

He continued in an open letter, "The unprovoked assault and unnecessary campaign, economic and social destruction of a sovereign country is unspeakable and unacceptable in a civilized world.

"And, while the images from Ukraine show courage and resilience, they’re also a cry out for help."

The team pledges to help raise money through game day raffles and utilize its home arena for charitable causes to help humanitarian aid efforts.

The Senators shared Melnyk's open letter on Twitter. You can read that here:

Swiss billionaire wants to buy famed football team from Russian billionaire

Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss says he wants to buy Chelsea F.C. from Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.

In the days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Abramovich announced that he plans to give the “stewardship” of Chelsea Football Club over to trustees of the club’s charitable foundation.

“I have always taken decisions with the Club’s best interest at heart. I remain committed to these values. That is why I am today giving trustees of Chelsea’s charitable Foundation the stewardship and care of Chelsea FC. I believe … they are in the best position to look after the interests of the Club, players, staff, and fans,” Abramovich wrote in a statement.

Abramovich is understood to want to retain his ownership of the club — which he has had since 2003 — but is reportedly concerned about possible UK sanctions and subsequent reputational damage.

Wyss, who founded medical device firm Synthes USA, says he and three other people received an offer to buy Chelsea from Abramovich, but there is no fixed selling price.

“I have to wait four to five days now. Abramovich is currently asking far too much. You know, Chelsea owes him two billion. But Chelsea has no money,” Wyss said.

EA Sports pulls Russian teams and clubs from video games: EA Sports will remove the Russian national team and all Russian club teams from FIFA 22, FIFA Mobile, FIFA online, and NHL 22, the video game company announced on Wednesday.

EA Sports NHL added the following additional remarks, “Following the IIHF’s suspension of all Russian and Belarusian national and club teams from IIHF competitions, we will be removing these teams from NHL 22 within the coming weeks. We stand with the people of Ukraine and join the voices around the world calling for peace.”

Russian tennis player speaks out against violence in Ukraine: Russian tennis player Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova is using her platform as a professional athlete to condemn the conflict in Ukraine. “I just don't want violence. All we want right now, our hearts have broken. We just want peace and love and stop the violence,” Pavlyuchenkova told CNN.

Pavlyuchenkova, who has shared her sentiments on Twitter, also offered support for her Ukrainian fellow tennis players. "I understand them and I feel for them and my heart is broken as much as them. I also understand their position,” she said. “I just want that the violence stop.”

Russian Ministry of Defense spokesperson Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Wednesday that 498 Russian military personnel have been killed since the invasion of Ukraine and 1,597 have been wounded. 

"Unfortunately, we have losses among our comrades who are participating in the operation," Konashenkov said in a briefing carried on state television. 

Russia's armed forces employ a mix of contract soldiers and draftees. Konashenkov said Russian draftees were not fighting in Ukraine. 

"I want to emphasize once again that neither conscripts nor cadets of educational institutions of the Russian Ministry of Defense are participating in a special operation," he said. "The information spread by many Western and individual Russian media about the supposedly 'innumerable' losses of the Russian force is deliberate disinformation."

Ukrainian officials have acknowledged casualties on their side and estimate Russian casualties to be much higher.

Russia’s stock market remains shut down. The ruble is worth less than a penny. And Western businesses are fleeing. JPMorgan warns a Russian default could be next.

It’s not necessarily that Russia doesn’t have the cash to make its debt payments. The Central Bank of Russia lists a staggering $643 billion of international reserves.

However, JPMorgan said sanctions leveled by the United States on Russian government entities, countermeasures within Russia to restrict foreign payments and the disruption of payment chains “present high hurdles for Russia to make a bond payment abroad.”

For instance, sanctions on Russia’s central bank and the exclusion of some banks from SWIFT, the high-security network banks used to communicate, will impact Russia’s ability to access foreign currency to pay down debt, according to Capital Economics. That includes Russia’s stockpile of reserves as well as cash from export revenue.

Russia has more than $700 million in payments coming due in March, mostly with a 30-day grace period, according to JPMorgan. 

Some believe the Kremlin could be setting the stage for an intentional default to punish the United States and Europe for crushing its economy.

Capital Economics noted that Russian authorities have already prohibited the transfer of coupon payments on local currency sovereign debt to foreigners, underscoring the point that authorities are “acting with scant regard for foreigners’ holdings of Russian assets.”

“Russia could use default as a way of retaliating against Western sanctions to inflict losses on foreign lenders. It’s not far-fetched to think that the Russian authorities could ban foreign debt repayments,” Capital Economics wrote.

Russia, currently the 12th largest economy in the world, last defaulted on its debt in 1998, setting off a crisis that spread overseas.

There has not been “significant change on the ground” in Ukraine since yesterday, a senior defense official said.

The US is currently estimating that Russia has committed 82% of its available combat power that had been staged outside Ukraine into the country. This figure represents just a small increase from the 80% the US estimated Tuesday.

Though there has been “no appreciable movement” of Russian forces advancing on Kyiv since yesterday, Russia has increased its “missiles and artillery targeting the city,” the official continued.

The official also said similarly that while Russian forces are assaulting Chernihiv and Kharkiv, there has been “no appreciable movement by the Russians to take either one.”

The official describes Russian forces as currently being “stalled” outside those cities. However, Russian forces have made more progress in the south, the official said.

Though the official notes that the US sees the city of Kherson as being “contested,” Russia claims that they have in fact taken control of the city.

The official also shared that though there had been no moves on Mariupol by Russia, there were “preliminary indications” that Russian forces would try to move on the city from the Donetsk region, with an assault on the city likely from multiple directions.

The US also believes a 40-mile-long Russian military convoy outside of Kyiv is “stalled,” the senior US defense official told reporters.

“We’ve seen indications that at times and at certain places, the convoy may have been resisted by Ukrainian forces, and I really think I have to leave it at that,” the official said.

The White House discouraged Americans from traveling to Ukraine to help defend the country from a Russian invasion on Wednesday, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked foreigners to come join the fight.

“Ukrainians have shown their courage and they are calling on every resource and lever they have to defend themselves,” principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said aboard Air Force One. “We applaud their bravery, however our travel advisory remains.” 

In a statement on Sunday, Zelensky addressed "all citizens of the world, friends of Ukraine, peace and democracy," saying, "Anyone who wants to join the defense of Ukraine, Europe and the world can come and fight side by side with the Ukrainians against the Russian war criminals."

The White House appeared to walk back its openness to ban Russian oil exports to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin, declining to rule it out entirely but saying that doing so was not in the US strategic interests due to disruptions to the global oil supply and the impact it would have on prices at the pump.

Jean-Pierre said that an export ban “would raise prices at the gas pump for Americans,” something that the White House is “very aware of.”

She lauded US companies that have cut ties with Russia, and said the administration “(welcomes) those announcements.”

But, Jean-Pierre said, the administration is more strategically focused on impacting Russia’s energy status over time. 

“We and our allies and partners have a strong collective interest to degrade Russia’s status as a leading energy supplier over time. That's why we've been talking about diversification. That's why we shut down Nord Stream 2. That's why we're helping to accelerate diversification for Russian gas. And that's why denying critical technology inputs that Russia needs to maintain its production capacity in oil and gas,” she said.

These more tempered comments come after US President Joe Biden Biden said sanctioning Russian oil exports remained a possibility.

“Nothing is off the table,” Biden said when specifically pressed on banning Russian oil exports earlier Wednesday.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told CNN this morning the administration would strongly weigh the possibility of significant disruption to US and global oil markets when making a decision. 

“What he (Biden) does not want to do is topple the global oil markets or the global marketplace, or impact the American people more with higher energy and gas prices. And obviously, the announcement that was made yesterday to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve here and do that in the united way, in a coordinated way with the global community, is an effort to address that and mitigate the impact, but that's something we heavily weigh.”

Russia has conducted “more than 450 missile launches,” since the beginning of their invasion of Ukraine, a senior US defense official told reporters on Wednesday.

The missiles being launched include “all stripes and sizes,” the official said, including “short-range, medium-range, surface air missiles, cruise missiles.”

The airspace over Ukraine also remains contested, the official added.

“Ukrainian air and missile defense capabilities remain intact and viable, but then again so do the Russians,” the official said.

There has not been “significant change on the ground” in Ukraine since yesterday, according to a senior defense official, with the US estimating that Russia has committed 82% of its available combat power that had been staged outside Ukraine into the country, just a small increase in the 80% the US estimated had been committed yesterday.

And though there has been “no appreciable movement” of Russian forces advancing on Kyiv since yesterday, Russia has increased its “missiles and artillery targeting the city,” according to the official, including targeting infrastructure in the city.

The official said similarly that while Russian forces are assaulting Cherniv and Kharkiv, there has been “no appreciable movement by the Russians to take either one,” with Russian forces “stalled” outside those cities.

However, Russian forces have made more progress in the south, according to the official, though the US sees the city of Kherson as “contested,” despite Russian claims that they had taken control of the city.

The official said that though there had been no moves on Mariupol by Russia, there were “preliminary indications” Russian forces would try to move on the city from the Donetsk region, with an assault on the city likely from multiple directions.

Nigeria says it has evacuated citizens fleeing Ukraine and they will arrive back into the country Thursday.

Nigeria’s foreign affairs ministry said Monday it had so far documented more than 2,000 nationals who fled Ukraine for neighboring European nations as Russian forces invaded the country last week.

The ministry said 650 Nigerians were received by the embassy in Hungary and another 350 in Poland. It added that 940 others were received in Romania and 150 arrived via Slovakia where they were processed for return back to their country.

“Furtherance to our efforts to evacuate Nigerians from the neighboring countries surrounding Ukraine, we can confirm that chattered flights will depart on Wednesday, March 2, 2022, to pick up Nigerian evacuees back home,” the ministry’s statement said.

Foreigners, including Nigerian and Indian students, had complained of poor treatment and racism at the hands of Ukrainian security forces and border officials as they fled the country.

The reports of racism against African citizens at the Ukrainian border sparked global outrage with African nations on the UN Security Council calling for “the mistreatment of African peoples on Europe’s borders…to cease immediately.” 

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said Wednesday that Africans and other non-Ukrainians attempting to flee the country should “have equal opportunities to return to their home countries safely.”