Doubling down

Russia’s botched invasion of its neighbor has other nations reassessing the prowess of its armed forces. Vladimir Putin’s failure to take a major city in two weeks of fighting may have forced him to send in most of the troops he had massed on Ukraine’s borders. He also seems to be doubling down on the leveling of the democratic nation in an ever-more brutal war with a rising number of killings of civilians. “They wanted Crimea 2014,” Caucasus scholar Thomas de Waal said of Russia. “But they got Chechnya 1994.” On Wednesday, Ukraine authorities said, Kremlin forces bombed a maternity hospital in the besieged city of Mariupol.

At the same time, Russia’s economic isolation grows more stark. A day after he went after its fossil fuel industry, U.S. President Joe Biden is now considering sanctioning Russia’s state-owned atomic energy company, a major supplier of fuel to power plants around the world. Domestically, Russians are experiencing the biggest inflation spike this century, thanks to how sanctions have crushed the ruble. And it’s about to get a lot worse.

Global stocks meanwhile staged a big rebound from the war-induced rout, with European equities notching the biggest rally since March 2020. U.S. shares jumped the most since June of that year and oil sank more than 10% to $110 a barrel. Nevertheless, the rallies clawed back only some of the losses incurred since Russia invaded Ukraine. The DAX had plunged into a bear market earlier this week while the S&P 500 is still sitting 10% below where it started the year. West Texas crude has added almost $20 a barrel in two weeks, and other commodities from nickel to wheat remain near historically high prices. Here’s your markets wrap. —David E. Rovella

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Putin’s invasion of Ukraine may be driving Europe’s energy use back toward coal in the short term, but there could be warp-speed deployment of green energy this decade. The continent looks like it’s on a wartime mission to ditch Russian oil and gas.

Germany is again standing between the rest of Europe and tougher sanctions against Russia. It’s emerged as the main roadblock to targeting the Kremlin’s biggest bank and its energy sector.

Biden is directing the U.S. government to focus more on the fast-growing crypto market, from researching a digital dollar to combating illicit finance. In an executive order signed on Wednesday, the White House called on agencies to coordinate what’s thus far been a scatter-shot approach to the asset class.

Biden’s Covid-19 rescue package last year funneled hazard pay or bonuses to more than 740,000 workers on the front lines of the pandemic, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Wednesday. While the U.S. and Europe continue to drop precautions as the omicron wave recedes in the West, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Korea and other East Asia and Pacific nations are being overwhelmed. Here’s the latest on the pandemic.

Add Amazon to the list of companies that have been outmaneuvered by Mukesh Ambani’s juggernaut. Not only has he jolted the U.S. giant in the fight to dominate India’s retail sector, he now holds all the cards in a $3.4 billion dogfight to buy a local cash-strapped retailer.

Former top prosecutor Yoon Suk-yeol won election as South Korea’s president, returning the conservative opposition to power after five years and signaling a hawkish turn in the country’s relations with China and North Korea.

Hundreds of ESG funds run by some of the world’s biggest money managers have a combined $13.4 billion stake in companies that supply weapons and technology to the Myanmar military. A military junta seized power there a year ago, overthrowing a democratically elected government and killing more than 1,500 civilians, including young children. One of the companies cited is India’s Bharat Electronics, shares of which are owned by BlackRock and State Street ESG funds. David Pred, executive director of Inclusive Development International, said “that dozens of companies with ties to Myanmar’s genocidal regime are included in ESG portfolios shows just how large the gulf is between ‘responsible-investment’ marketing claims and reality.”

A 308-year-old Stradivarius violin is estimated to sell in the range of $15 million to $20 million on June 9 at an online auction conducted by the fine instrument auction house Tarisio. The violin is called the “da Vinci, Ex-Seidel.”

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