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SINGAPORE Much of the world has united against Russia in the aftermath of its incursion into Ukraine. Envoys have walked out of meetings rather than listen to a top Russian diplomat speak. Western nations have been in near lock step on international sanctions. Bartenders are banning Russian vodka.

In Asia, the reaction has been far more mixed.

Generals in Myanmar have called Russias actions the right thing to do. India abstained from a United Nations Security Council resolution to condemn the attack. China has refused to call the assault on Ukraine an invasion. And in Vietnam, Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, is being affectionately referred to as Uncle Putin.

While most American allies in the region have fallen in line, authoritarian governments and those with weaker ties to the West have been more reluctant to act on the conflict in Ukraine. Across the Asia-Pacific, only Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Australia have agreed to international sanctions against Moscow. Taiwan, the self-governed territory that China claims as its own, has also agreed to sanctions and voiced support for Ukraine.

The uneven response is unlikely to counterbalance the onslaught of Western anger, but it could test the limits of President Bidens pledge to make Mr. Putin a pariah on the international stage.

Russias influence in Asia is minimal compared with that of the United States, though it has grown in recent years, with a particular focus on arms sales. Already, the economic ministry in Moscow announced last Friday that it would seek to expand economic and trade ties with Asia to help offset Western sanctions.

I dont think we will shun Russia, said Bilahari Kausikan, Singapores former ambassador to Russia. It is still a big country and is a nuclear weapons state. It is also a permanent member of the Security Council, a status that is unlikely to change, Mr. Kausikan said.

Russia has sold fighter jets to Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar, but its biggest customer in Southeast Asia is Vietnam. From 2000 to 2019, 84 percent of Vietnams weapons imports came from Russia, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

In its bid to counter China, Vietnam has bought billions of dollars worth of Russian artillery, aircraft and submarines, transforming its military into one of Southeast Asias most capable fighting forces while making itself dependent on Moscow for years to come.

In India, Moscow has been seen as a reliable military partner for decades. New Delhi is the worlds second-largest importer of Russian arms, which account for about half of its military supplies. When Mr. Putin visited New Delhi late last year, Russia detailed the sale of a $5.4 billion missile defense system to the country.

India has been careful not to condemn Russia over Ukraine and upset a time-tested friendship at a moment when China is threatening to encroach on its northeastern border. Moscow repeatedly used its veto power at the Security Council to block resolutions critical of India over Kashmir, a disputed territory India shares with Pakistan. In return, India abstained from a U.N. resolution condemning Moscow over its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Indian officials said last week that they may even help Russia find workarounds for the new sanctions by setting up rupee accounts to continue trade with Moscow, similar to what it did after the annexation of Crimea.

Whose side is India on? said Pankaj Saran, Indias former ambassador to Russia. We are on our side. The cyclical bursts of Cold War antagonism are tiresome.

Indonesia, like India, has significantly increased its economic and defense ties with Russia over the years. Bilateral trade between the two countries rose to $2.74 billion in 2021, a 42.2 percent increase from the year before. Palm oil makes up about 38 percent of Indonesias exports to Russia.

In December 2021, Jakarta hosted the first-ever joint maritime exercise between Russia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN.

March 4, 2022, 7:29 a.m. ET

Indonesia does not see Russia as a threat to global politics or as a foe, said Dinna Prapto Raharja, an associate professor in international relations at Bina Nusantara University in Jakarta. Unilateral sanctions limit the chance for negotiation and heightens the sense of insecurity to the affected countries, she added.

Last Thursday, Teuku Faizasyah, a spokesman for Indonesias Foreign Ministry, suggested that the country had no intention of imposing sanctions against Moscow, arguing it would not blindly follow the steps taken by another country.

Where the United States has been quick to criticize Russia for its policies, Mr. Putins brand of authoritarian politics has appealed to many countries across Asia, and especially in Southeast Asia, where strongman rule is often favored.

In a 2017 Pew Research Center global survey, more than half those polled in the Philippines and Vietnam said they trusted Mr. Putin. At the height of the pandemic, Moscow donated Covid-19 vaccines to the Philippines, Vietnam and Laos.

I am a big fan of Uncle Putin because he always takes drastic actions, said Tran Trung Hieu, 28, an independent filmmaker in Hanoi, using the same term of respect that locals use for Ho Chi Minh, the revolutionary who led the independence movement in Vietnam.

Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, has called Mr. Putin his favorite hero. The Philippines on Monday said it condemned the invasion in Ukraine but did not name Russia. Last week, Vietnam refrained from singling Russia out as an aggressor, and instead called on all relevant parties to exercise restraint.

A Ukrainian city falls. Russian troops gained control of Kherson,the first city to be overcome during the war. The overtaking of Kherson is significant as it allows the Russians to control more of Ukraines southern coastline and to push west toward the city of Odessa.

Two editors for a Vietnamese online magazine and Vietnam National Television said they were told to censor themselves in their reports on the war, including reducing the extent and frequency of coverage, and banning the word invasion. Both asked to remain anonymous for fear of government reprisals.

But no country in Southeast Asia has been more supportive of Russia since the invasion than Myanmar, where the military seized power in a coup 13 months ago. Senior military officers from both nations, including Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the head of Myanmars regime, exchanged visits several times last year.

Last week, Maj. Gen Zaw Min Tun, the spokesman for the junta, told The New York Times that Moscow had done its part to maintain its sovereignty, and that the attack was the right thing to do. Russia has continued to sell arms to Myanmar after the coup, despite warnings as a humanitarian crisis unfolds.

On Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called for an international tribunal to investigate Russia for war crimes, but governments in Asia have long understood that being vocal about human rights abuses risks inviting unwanted scrutiny on repressive policies at home.

Thailand, a treaty ally of the United States, has said little about the war except that it supported ongoing efforts to find a peaceful settlement. Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkoks Chulalongkorn University, called that stance sitting on the fence and not wanting to get down from the fence at all.

When Thailand engages abroad, it is concerned, it is fearful that there will be questions about domestic issues in Thailand, Mr. Thitinan said. The country quelled recent nationwide protests by arresting dozens of young people.

Even among the stalwart American allies in Asia, the decision to punish Russia has included some hesitation.

South Korea, after a delay, said it would implement sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe but would not enact its own penalties. Officials said the country needed to keep in mind that our trade relations with Russia are growing. By contrast, Japans prime minister, Fumio Kishida, was quick to condemn Russian aggression and announce sanctions.

In an interview, Kateryna Zelenko, Ukraines ambassador to Singapore, said a refusal to stop Russia would ultimately compromise global security. It must be clear that keeping silent and standing neutral is a form of consent, Ms. Zelenko said.

She added: We really hope that everyone soon understands that in this terrible war, nobody will be able to sit out.

Sui-Lee Wee reported from Singapore, Emily Schmall from New Delhi and Sameer Yasir from Srinagar, India. Vo Kieu Bao Uyen contributed reporting from Ho Chi Minh City, and Muktita Suhartono from Bangkok.

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Asian Nations' Mixed Reactions to the Ukraine Invasion - The New York Times

The role of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin has been a key talking point during Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the enacting of sanctions and subsequent financial market turmoil.

And it has thrown up three big questions about how it is being used and what its future looks like.

After its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been hit with a number of economic sanctions aimed at cutting the country off from the global financial system.

Key Russian figures and financial institutions have been placed on a U.S. sanctions list that effectively prohibits American firms from doing business with them. Meanwhile, the United States, European allies and Canada have removed key Russian banks from an interbank messaging system called SWIFT, which hampers their access to global financial markets.

The sanctions have caused the Russian ruble to plunge.

This has led to a debate about whether cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin, could be a way for those on sanctions lists to evade the restrictions.

This is because bitcoin and other digital currencies are often decentralized, meaning they're not issued or controlled by a central entity like a central bank. When crypto is sent to other users, it does not go through the traditional route of financial plumbing.

But there are a number of challenges.

First, blockchain, the technology that underpins bitcoin, is a public ledger of activity. It's therefore possible to track the movements of funds from one account to another quite easily. This doesn't make it a good tool for avoiding sanctions.

"The biggest misconception about crypto remains that it is untraceable and is primarily used for nefarious purposes, which couldn't be further from the truth," Vijay Ayyar, vice president of corporate development and international at crypto exchange Luno, told CNBC.

Meanwhile, there isn't enough liquidity for Russian oligarchs and companies to move their money around.

"Liquidity in crypto is still a fraction of the global currency market, and hence moving large amounts of money using crypto is difficult," Ayyar said.

Cryptocurrency exchanges will also be on high alert.

"Exchanges that operate with strong processes and codes of conduct will no doubt be doubly watchful at this moment for funds that have nefarious origins," Charles Hayter, CEO of data firm CryptoCompare, toldCNBC.

On Thursday, Brian Armstrong, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange and wallet Coinbase, backed up many of these points in a thread. He said that every U.S. business has to follow the law.

"It doesn't matter if your company handles dollars, crypto, gold, real estate or even non financial assets. Sanctions laws apply to all US people and businesses," Armstrong said.

"So it would be a mistake to think crypto businesses like Coinbase won't follow the law. Of course we will. This is why we screen people who sign up for our services against global watchlists, and block transactions from IP addresses that might belong to sanctioned individuals or entities, just like any other regulated financial services business."

However, there has been a spike in the volume of transactions from ruble into bitcoin and to tether, a so-called stablecoin tied to the U.S. dollar, since Russia's attack on Ukraine, according to CryptoCompare. Hayter said this is a "flight to the dollar by any means possible where crypto is but another route to preserve wealth," as the ruble has plunged.

Coinbase's Armstrong said "some ordinary Russians are using crypto as a lifeline now that their currency has collapsed."

Earlier this week, lawmakers including Senator Elizabeth Warren urged the Treasury Department to ensure that they could make sure crypto companies are compliant with sanctions on Russia. One U.S. government official said it's unlikely that Russia could evade sanctions using cryptocurrencies.

"The scale that the Russian state would need to successfully circumvent all U.S. and partners' financial sanctions would almost certainly render cryptocurrency as an ineffective primary tool for the state," said Carol House, the director of cybersecurity for the National Security Council, during a webinar on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

For years, proponents of bitcoin have been calling the digital currency "digital gold." The idea is that bitcoin is a store of value and could be a safe haven asset in times of turmoil, just like the yellow metal.

However, that theory has unraveled in recent years, as bitcoin trading has been correlated to risk assets, in particular stocks.

But as the war in Ukraine intensified this week, bitcoin saw a huge one day jump taking it above $44,000 off the lows for the year, prompting speculation that its time as a safe haven asset has come.

Several experts disagreed.

"We have read across a few different publications that BTC is regaining its status as a safe-haven. We completely disagree with this notion," Lux Thiagarajah, head of trading and account management at crypto financial services company BCB Group, said in a note on Thursday.

"A safe haven is an asset that retains its value during times of market turbulence. Crypto has aggressively sold off since it was clear the Fed (U.S. Federal Reserve) were going to hike rates faster than anticipated which in turn saw stocks sell off. This is not the definition of a safe haven."

Luno's Ayyar said in the past week that bitcoin has "de-correlated quite a bit from equities and gold, which is one positive indication around its use case as a safe haven." He added that bitcoin will continue to mature, taking away market share from gold, but that narrative "may still take more time to play out."

Cryptocurrency proponents often tout the underlying blockchain as a way to have more efficient and traceable transactions. One of the reasons is that there is no intermediary to move the money, unlike traditional financial transactions.

But many cryptocurrencies still suffer from high fees and slow transaction speed. They haven't necessarily seen mass adoption for things like payments.

However, during the war, Ukraine began to accept donations via cryptocurrencies to fund its military, among other things. Ukraine has raised over $50 million via cryptocurrencies, according to analytics firm Elliptic.

Taking donations via traditional banking methods could be difficult, given the high cost of sending money abroad. It might also take a long time for Ukraine to receive money.

That's where cryptocurrencies have an advantage, according to Garrick Hileman, visiting fellow at the London School of Economics.

"When critical infrastructure is out or there are concerns about how quickly something can get through traditional banking system, as long as you have internet and a computing device you can transact. That has been one of the promises of crypto," Hileman said.

Because the transactions are on a public ledger, Hileman said, you can to some extent to see where the money you send goes and how it is deployed after it is received.

"Some of the original value propositions of cryptocurrencies are seeing validation," he added.

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The Russia-Ukraine conflict has thrust crypto into the spotlight and raised 3 big questions - CNBC

PODBORSKO, Poland Scattered around the forest in Poland like archaeological ruins, the crumbling concrete bunkers for decades stored Soviet nuclear warheads. Today, they store only memories deeply painful for Poland, joyous for the Kremlin of the vanished empire that President Vladimir V. Putin wants to rebuild, starting with his war in Ukraine.

Nobody here trusted the Russians before and we certainly dont trust them now, said Mieczyslaw Zuk, a former Polish soldier who oversees the once top-secret nuclear site. The bunkers were abandoned by the Soviet military in 1990 as Moscows hegemony over East and Central Europe unraveled in what President Putin has described as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.

Now Eastern European countries fear a catastrophe of their own could be in the making, as Mr. Putin seeks to turn back the clock and reclaim Russias lost sphere of influence, perilously close to their frontiers. Even leaders in the region who have long supported Mr. Putin are sounding the alarm.

Warnings about Moscows intentions, often dismissed until last Thursdays invasion of Ukraine as Russophobia by those without experience of living in proximity to Russia, are now widely accepted as prescient. And while there has been debate about whether efforts to expand NATO into the former Soviet bloc were a provocation to Mr. Putin, his assault on Ukraine has left countries that joined the American-led military alliance convinced they made the right decision.

A Russian attack on Poland or other former members of the defunct Warsaw Pact that now belong to NATO is still highly unlikely but Mr. Putin has made the unthinkable possible, warned Gabrielius Landsbergis, the foreign minister of Lithuania, Polands neighbor to the north.

We live in a new reality. If Putin is not stopped he will go further, Mr. Landsbergis said in an interview. His country, bordering both Russia and its ally Belarus, has declared a state of emergency.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland gave his own warning of perhaps worse to come. We should be under no illusions: this could be just the beginning, he wrote in the Financial Times. Tomorrow Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, as well as Poland, could be next in line.

Fear that Mr. Putin is capable of just about anything, even using nuclear weapons, is just common sense, said Toomas Ilves, a former president of Estonia.

Mr. Ilves announced this week on Twitter that he was accepting apologies for all the patronizing nonsense from Western Europeans who complained that we Estonians were paranoid about Russian behavior.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Ilves said he had not received any apologies yet but was gratified to see Russias shills and useful idiots getting their comeuppance.

Western Europeans who once scoffed at his dark view of Russia, he added, have suddenly become East Europeans in their fearful attitudes. This past week marks the end of a 30-year-long error that we can all come together and sing kumbaya.

Memories of Soviet hegemony over what is now NATOs eastern flank imposed after the Red Army liberated the region from Nazi occupation at the end of World War II vary from country to country depending on history, geography and convoluted domestic political struggles.

For Poland, a nation repeatedly invaded by Russia over the centuries, they are of humiliation and oppression. Baltic states, extinguished as independent nations by Stalin in 1940 and dragooned at gunpoint into the Soviet Union, feel much the same way.

Others have fonder recollections, particularly Bulgaria, where pro-Russian sentiment has long run deep, at least until last week, and Serbia, which has for centuries seen Russia as its protector.

Mr. Putins war to bring Ukraine to heel, however, has united the region in alarm, with even Serbia voicing dismay. On Monday, Bulgarias prime minister fired his defense minister, who caused outrage by suggesting that the conflict in Ukraine should not be called a war but a special military operation, the Kremlins euphemism for its invasion.

March 4, 2022, 7:29 a.m. ET

Only Milorad Dodik, the belligerent, pro-Kremlin leader of Bosnias ethnic Serbian enclave, Republika Srpska, has shown any sympathy for Mr. Putins war, stating that Russias reasons for its invasion were received with understanding.

Outrage over Russian aggression, even in countries historically sympathetic to Moscow, has derailed years of work by Russian diplomats and intelligence operatives to cultivate allies like Ataka, an ultranationalist political party in Bulgaria that is so close to Russia that it once launched its election campaign in Moscow.

Even Hungarys prime minister, Viktor Orban, who usually delights in defying fellow European leaders and stood with Mr. Putin last month in the Kremlin, has now endorsed a raft of sanctions imposed on Russia by the European bloc. He is still blocking transport of weapons into Ukraine across Hungarys border but has curbed his previously gushing enthusiasm for Mr. Putin.

So, too, has Milos Zeman, the previously Kremlin-friendly president of the Czech Republic. I admit I was wrong, Mr. Zeman said this week.

A Ukrainian city falls. Russian troops gained control of Kherson,the first city to be overcome during the war. The overtaking of Kherson is significant as it allows the Russians to control more of Ukraines southern coastline and to push west toward the city of Odessa.

In Poland, traditionally one of the most anti-Russian countries in the region, the populist governing party, Law and Justice, has gone almost overnight from aligning itself with Moscow in its hostility to L.G.B.T.Q. rights and the defense of traditional values to become one of Mr. Putins most robust critics, offering its territory for the delivery of weapons into Ukraine and taking in more than 450,000 Ukrainians who have fled the war.

Gas stations and A.T.M.s in southeastern Poland along the border with Ukraine have been besieged in recent days by people worried that they might need to get out fast. That possibility hit home on Monday evening when missiles slammed into a Ukrainian village just a few miles from the frontier, rattling windows in nearby houses on the Polish side.

Just two weeks before Russian troops poured into Ukraine, Polands prime minister, Mr. Morawiecki, joined Mr. Orban and Marine Le Pen, the far-right French presidential candidate who has frequently spoken up for Russia, at a meeting in Madrid focused on attacking the European Union and its liberal attitudes on immigration.

In recent days, however, Mr. Morawiecki has dropped the hostility to the European bloc to focus instead on opposing the Kremlin. He has lobbied for tough sanctions on Russia, traveling to Berlin to personally shake Germanys conscience and nudge it toward a dramatic U-turn in its policy toward Russia. On a recent visit to Warsaw, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III hailed Poland as one of our most stalwart allies.

On Friday, Poland hosted a summit meeting with nine regional leaders to rally opposition to Russias invasion and discuss ways to help Ukraine. We have woken up to a completely new reality, the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, told the gathering, lamenting that it had taken a Russian invasion to interrupt the peaceful sleep of wealthy Europeans.

A nation of Slavs like Ukraine, Poland has long been viewed as a wayward family member by more messianic-minded Russian nationalists, whose views Mr. Putin channeled last week in his justification for the war. Russias foreign minister recently sneered at Poland and other new NATO members as territories orphaned by the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union.

To demonstrate that Poland has no desire to rejoin what Moscow imagines as its happy, obedient but sadly divided family, the mayor of Warsaw announced on Tuesday that refugees from Ukraine would be housed in apartment blocks built during the Cold War to house Soviet diplomats and left abandoned since because of legal disputes over ownership.

Few people expect Russia to try and bring Poles back into a Moscow-dominated Slavic family by force, as it is now trying to do with Ukrainians. Doing that, said Tomasz Smura, director of research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation, a research group in Warsaw, would mean that Putin has gone totally mad.

At the former Soviet warhead bunker in Podborsko, northwestern Poland, Mr. Zuk said he never really expected the Russians to try to retake their lost, Soviet-era military outposts. But he still wondered why, just before pulling out of Podobsko with its nuclear weapons, the Soviet military drew up a maintenance schedule for cranes used to lift warheads and other equipment at the facility stretching years into the future.

It seems they did not think they were leaving forever, Mr. Zuk said, standing in a cavernous underground hall once crammed with warheads and long off limits to all but Soviet officers. In its attitude toward Poland, he added, Russia has always acted like a master toward a servant, a relationship that it is now trying to impose on Ukraine. I worry that Putin may want to get hold of Poland and the Baltic states, too, he said.

Boryana Dzhambazova in Sofia, Tomas Dapkus in Vilnius and Anatol Magdziarz in Warsaw contributed reporting.

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Putin's War to Bring Ukraine to Heel Unites Eastern Europe in Alarm - The New York Times

KYIV/KHARKIV, Ukraine, March 2 (Reuters) - Ukraine's second biggest city, Kharkiv, suffered heavy bombardment on Wednesday as Russia's week-long invasion was denounced by the United Nations in a historic vote and dozens of countries referred Moscow to be probed for potential war crimes.

The biggest attack on a European state since 1945 has caused over 870,000 people to flee, led to a barrage of economic measures against Russia, and stoked fears of wider conflict in the West unthought-of for decades.

The incursion has yet to overthrow the government in Kyiv but thousands are thought to have died or been injured and it could cause another deep hit to the global economy still emerging from the coronavirus pandemic.

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For Russians, the fallout has included queues outside banks, a plunge in the value of the rouble, and an exodus of international firms. As sanctions have tightened, Russian billionaires are moving their superyachts and the owner of Chelsea sold the soccer club.

In Ukraine, the human toll was mounting in Kharkiv, a city of 1.5 million people, where bombing has left its centre a wasteland of ruined buildings and debris.

"The Russian 'liberators' have come," one Ukrainian volunteer lamented sarcastically, as he and three others strained to carry the dead body of a man wrapped in a bedsheet out of the ruins on a main square.

A U.N. resolution reprimanding Moscow was supported by 141 of the assembly's 193 members, passed in a rare emergency session, a symbolic victory for Ukraine that increases Moscow's international isolation. read more

"More is at stake even than the conflict in Ukraine itself. This is a threat to the security of Europe and the entire rules-based order," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters after the vote.

An investigation into possible war crimes will immediately be opened by the International Criminal Court, following requests by 39 of the court's member states, an unprecedented number.

The body will start collecting evidence for "any past and present allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide committed", prosecutor Karim Khan said in a statement. read more

No one at Russia's foreign ministry was available for comment when contacted out-of-hours.

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a "special operation" that is not designed to occupy territory but to destroy its neighbour's military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists.

The Kremlin said its forces had taken the Black Sea port of Kherson, a southern provincial capital of around 250,000 people strategically placed where the Dnipro River flows into the Black Sea. Kyiv earlier denied this.

Late on Wednesday, Kherson Mayor Igor Kolykhayev said Russian troops were in the streets and had forced their way into the city council building.

An explosion also rocked the Kyiv railway station during the night, where thousands of women and children were being evacuated.

An interior ministry adviser said the blast was caused by wreckage from a downed Russian cruise missile, not a direct rocket strike. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis have so far failed.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow still sought Ukraine's "demilitarisation" and that there should be a list of specified weapons that could never be deployed on Ukrainian territory. Moscow opposes Kyiv's bid to join NATO.

A Ukrainian delegation had left for a second round of talks with Russian officials on a ceasefire after a first round made little progress on Monday, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Russia must stop bombing if it wants to negotiate.

A view shows the area near National University after shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in this handout picture released March 2, 2022. Ukrainian State Emergency Service/via REUTERS

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DISPUTED DEATH TOLL

The U.N. Human Rights Office said it had confirmed the deaths of 227 civilians and 525 injuries during the conflict as of midnight on March 1, mostly caused by "the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area".

It cautioned that the real toll would be much higher due to reporting delays.

Russia's defence ministry said 498 Russian soldiers had died and another 1,597 had been wounded since the start of the invasion, the first time Moscow put a figure on its casualties. It said more than 2,870 Ukrainian soldiers and "nationalists" had been killed, Interfax news agency reported.

Ukraine said more than 7,000 Russian soldiers had been killed so far and hundreds taken prisoner.

The figures could not be independently verified.

After failing to swiftly take major cities and subdue Ukraine's military, U.S. officials have said they believe Russia will instead seek to encircle cities, cutting off supply and escape routes, then attacking with a combined force of armour, ground troops and engineers.

At least 25 people have been killed by shelling and air strikes in Kharkiv in the past 24 hours, authorities said.

Pavel Dorogoy, 36, a photographer who lives near the city centre, said Russian forces had targeted the council building, which was empty at the time, a telephone exchange, and a television tower.

"The Russians cannot enter the town so they're just attacking us from afar," he said.

Moscow denies targeting civilians.

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Russia's main advance on the capital - a huge armoured column, stretching for miles along the road to Kyiv - has been largely frozen in place for days, Western governments say.

The Kremlin's decision to launch war - after months of denying such plans - has shocked Russians accustomed to viewing Putin, their ruler of 22 years, as a methodical strategist.

It has also prompted global firms such as Apple (AAPL.O), Exxon (XOM.N) and Boeing (BA.N) to join an exodus from Russian markets.

SWIFT, the dominant messaging system underpinning global financial transactions, said seven Russian institutions would be excluded from March 12. read more

Russia's rouble currency plunged to a new record low on Wednesday, a slide that will hit Russians' living standards, and the stock market remained closed.

The central bank, itself under sanctions, has doubled interest rates to 20% and Fitch downgraded Russia's sovereign credit rating to 'junk' status. read more

Forbes reported that Germany had seized Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov's mega yacht in a Hamburg shipyard, while at least five superyachts owned by billionaires were anchored or cruising in Maldives, an Indian Ocean island nation that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, data showed. read more

Roman Abramovich said he would sell London's Chelsea Football Club after 19 years of ownership and donate the money to help the victims of the war. read more

"I believe this is in the best interest of the club," he said.

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Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Natalia Zinets and Aleksandar Vasovic in Ukraine and by Reuters bureauxWriting by Peter Graff, Gareth Jones and Costas PitasEditing by Philippa Fletcher, Catherine Evans and Rosalba O'Brien

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Ukraine's second city heavily bombed as U.N. assembly denounces Russia - Reuters

As Russia is trying to cut off the flow of information in Ukraine by attacking its communications infrastructure, the British news outlet BBC is revisiting a broadcasting tactic popularized during World War II: shortwave radio.

The BBC said this week that it would use radio frequencies that can travel for long distances and be accessible on portable radios to broadcast its World Service news in English for four hours a day in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and in parts of Russia.

Its often said truth is the first casualty of war, Tim Davie, director-general of the BBC, said in a statement. In a conflict where disinformation and propaganda is rife, there is a clear need for factual and independent news people can trust.

On Tuesday, Russian projectiles struck the main radio and television tower in Kyiv. Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraines defense minister, wrote on Twitter that Russias goal was to break the resistance of the Ukrainian people and army, starting with a breakdown of connection and the spread of massive FAKE messages that the Ukrainian country leadership has agreed to give up.

Shortwave radio has been a go-to vehicle to reach listeners in conflict zones for decades, used to deliver crackling dispatches to soldiers in the Persian Gulf war, send codes to spies in North Korea and pontificate through the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. But more modern forms of radio along with the internet eventually pushed shortwave out of favor; the BBC retired its shortwave transmissions in Europe 14 years ago.

Over the last week of February, viewership of BBCs Ukrainian language site more than doubled from a year earlier to 3.9 million visitors, the broadcaster said on Wednesday. The BBC also provides news coverage in the country via its website, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, Viber and Espreso TV.

Millions of Russians are also turning to the BBC, the broadcaster said. The audience for the BBCs Russian language news website reached a record 10.7 million in the past week, more than tripling its weekly average so far in 2022, the company said. Visitors to BBCs English language website from within Russia surged 252 percent to 423,000.

Within the country, BBC also posts updates on Telegram, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Other Western news outlets have also experienced a surge in viewership. Visits to The Guardians digital platforms from Russian and Ukrainian audiences were up 180 percent from January.

The BBCs coverage has led to complaints from Russian officials. Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for Russias Foreign Ministry, said during a briefing broadcast by RT, the Kremlin-backed Russian media outlet, that Russia was the victim of unprecedented information terrorism that was devoted to discrediting Russian actions and creating hysteria around Ukrainian events.

The BBC plays a determined role in undermining the Russian stability and security, Ms. Zakharova said, without providing evidence.

Early Friday, BBCs Russian service reported problems accessing its site in Russia.

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Why BBC Revived Shortwave Radio Dispatches in Ukraine - The New York Times