Russia Ukraine War News Highlights | UN General Assembly 'demands' Russia withdraw from Ukraine: AFP

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ING puts new business in Russia on ice over Ukraine: AFP

Top Dutch bank ING said Wednesday it will freeze any new business deals with Russian companies, as the European Union moved to cut Russian banks from the SWIFT payment system.

The Amsterdam-based ING also said it would abide by international sanctions and "have processes in place to respond to sanctions in a timely way across our network."

"We strongly condemn the invasion of Ukraine, the devastating and heartbreaking impact it has on people's lives and the threat it poses to international stability and security," said ING chief executive Steven van Rijswijk.

"We have decided to not do any new business with Russian companies," he said in a statement.

The freeze would mainly relate to new loans, a core business for ING in Russia, an ING official told AFP.

The bank said it would also waive fees for personal money transfer transactions to Ukraine and donate three million euros ($3.3 million) to the UN children's fund for relief efforts.

The EU on Wednesday cut seven Russian banks from the SWIFT payment system in the latest ratcheting up of the Western-coordinated sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, now in its seventh day.

The European Union has approved new sanctions against Belarus for its supporting role in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the EU said on Wednesday, including a ban on exporting machinery to Minsk. The fresh sanctions, which have not been published yet and, for now, spare Belarusian banks, come after Minsk allowed Russian troops to move into Ukraine from its territory. The French Presidency of the EU said on Twitter the measures will include fresh economic sanctions and new listings of Belarusian officials and military involved in the aggression against Ukraine. They will hit "some economic sectors, and in particular timber, steel and potash," it said in a statement. An EU official told Reuters that sanctions would include an import ban on several commodities, including mineral fuels, a ban on the export of EU machinery to Belarus, and other export control measures. Unlike Russian lenders, Belarusian banks have not been excluded yet from the SWIFT international payments system, the official said, adding that "will come".

Ukraine on Wednesday invited the worried mothers of Russian troops captured on the battlefield to come and collect their sons, in an apparent attempt to embarrass Moscow."A decision has been taken to hand over captured Russian troops to their mothers if they come to collect them in Ukraine, in Kyiv," the defence ministry said in a statement.

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has sent relief material, including blankets and sleeping mats, to Ukraine facing an intense Russian military offensive. The move came following the government's decision to send humanitarian aid and medical supplies to Ukraine after Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a high level meeting.The relief material was sent in two consignments - through a flight that left for Poland this morning and another on an Indian Air Force aircraft that left for Romania on Wednesday afternoon. The NDRF has provided relief materials, including blankets, sleeping mats, and solar study lamps among others, for the people of Ukraine, an official statement said.

MEA Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said thatembassyin Kyivwas asked to set up a temporary office in Lviv to facilitate border crossings by Indians. "A substantial segment of our Embassy team is now at Lviv for this purpose. Location of the other segment of the Embassy team is dynamic," he said.

The impact of the conflict in Ukraine on the US economy is "highly uncertain" and the central bank will need to adjust quickly to ensure the recovery continues, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday.With prices rising at their fastest pace in four decades and oil soaring above $100 a barrel, the Fed chief repeated that policymakers are ready to raise interest rates to tamp down inflation.But "the economy evolves in unexpected ways," he said, and "we will need to be nimble in responding."

In principle, we're always ready to help other countries. If we get a specific request on it, then our stand will be guided by it. If we get an opportunity like that, and we are able to do it, then we will definitely help.

Shipments of foodstuffs and medical supplies to Russia risk being damaged or spoiled due to significant delays at ports and customs, shipping group Maersk told its customers on Wednesday. Maersk and two other large container lines have temporarily suspended cargo shipments to and from Russia in response to Western sanctions on Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine. The suspension did not include foodstuffs, medical and humanitarian supplies. "We do, however, warn caution on still placing bookings for perishable cargo due to significant delays in key transshipment hubs that may damage the cargo," Maersk said in a customer advisory on its website. It said customs authorities in the European Union and UK are inspecting all containers to and from Russia transiting their terminals and ports to identify sanctioned and restricted shipments. As a consequence, Maersk said it could not provide any guarantees and saw a "significant risk to our customers' perishable cargo". For the past year the world has been struggling with supply chain bottlenecks caused by surging demand for retail goods transported on container ships amid lockdowns related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Chandan Jindal, an Indian national in Ukraine lost his life due to natural causes, family also in Ukraine:Arindam Bagchi

Indian Air Force aircraft have joined Operationwith the first C-17 flight from Bucharest (Romania) expected to return to Delhi later tonight. 3 more IAF flights will be undertaken today from Budapest (Hungary), Bucharest (Romania) & Rzeszow (Poland).

Western sanctions on Russia will have a significant impact on the economy, but are unlikely to stop its assault on Ukraine, an expert on economic warfare told AFP.Gary Hufbauer, a researcher at Washington's Peterson Institute for International Economics, has studied 100 cases of sanctions being used over the past century, from World War I to Iraq."The success rate in terms of achieving the foreign policy objective was less than a third of the cases," said the author of "Economic Sanctions Reconsidered"."Most of the countries where there was success were smaller countries, weaker countries, not so much bigger countries as in the case of Russia," Hufbauer said in an interview.

Economic pressure worked against countries like Panama, Peru or Sierra Leone, and helped topple dictators in some mid-sized countries like Brazil and South Korea. They were also "made a contribution" to the end of the racist apartheid regime in South Africa, he said.But Washington's sanctions failed to prevent Pakistan from obtaining nuclear weapons.And while US sanctions on China over the Korean war in the 1950s were economically and militarily painful, "China persisted" in supporting the North Koreans -- as did the Soviet Union.The one time Moscow did withdraw, from Afghanistan in the 1980s, "was not so much because of the sanctions" but due to US arming of Afghans, the loss of Russian forces and political turmoil at home, Hufbauer said.