Civilian Safety Corridor to Open in Mariupol

(Bloomberg) — Russian shelling resumed in violation of a brokered temporary ceasefire, hours after a mass evacuation started Saturday from Mariupol and Volnovakha. About 215,000 women, childen and elderly had been expected to flee, with the Red Cross to guarantee the ceasefire. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday blasted NATO as “weak” for refusing to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine as Russia steps up its attacks. In Brussels, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. and allies are providing “extensive” support for Ukraine, but have a responsibility to ensure the war doesn’t spread. 

The United Nations Security Council will meet Monday to discuss the humanitarian situation in Ukraine. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a vocal critic of Wall Street, said banks are “undermining” sanctions on Russia by loading up on the nation’s corporate debt and looking to buy assets on the cheap. 

Moody’s Corp. will suspend its commercial operations in Russia for now. The move covers both Moody’s Investors Service and Moody’s Analytics operations, the company said in a statement Saturday. Moody’s Investors Service will maintain analytical coverage for existing ratings from outside Russia, it added.

Poland said a record 106,400 people from Ukraine crossed its border on Friday, and another 34,000 early Saturday morning. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine close to 800,000 people have fled Ukraine for Poland. Smaller numbers have fled to Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Molodova and other EU countries, as well as the Russia itself. 

Russian forces resumed shelling Volnovakha with heavy weaponry, said Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, adding that people have been asked to take shelter. There was no immediate comment from Russia or from the Red Cross, which is monitoring the temporary ceasefire.

The government earlier announced plans to evacuate 15,000 children, women and elderly people from the town in the eastern Ukraine.

Fighting is also taking place on along a route meant to serve as a humanitarian corridor to evacuate 200,000 people from Mariupol, Vereshchuk said. She called on Russia to allow the delivery of food and medicine. Mariupol officials asked people to seek shelter. Russia hasn’t commented on the situation. 

Ukraine has launched https://fightforua.org, a website for foreigners who want to volunteer to join its army, according to a statement on President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s website.   

“Ukraine calls on foreigners to join our fight for peace and democracy in Europe and in the world,” Zelenskiy said in the statement. 

The Ukrainian president signed a decree on March 1 abolishing visa requirements for those who want to volunteer. 

President Vladimir Putin will speak Sunday with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian and Turkish media reported. Erdogan is one of several foreign leaders who’ve offered to host peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. 

Ukraine plans to evacuate about 200,000 women and children from Mariupol, which has been under heavy Russia’s shelling and is encircled, and another 15,000 from Volnovakha to the north, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Saturday in a video address.  

The Red Cross will guarantee ceasefires along those corridors, she said.

Vereshchuk also said Russian troops are taking advantage of Saturday’s ceasefire to advance in those areas, and called on authorities to order a halt to such activity.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi is set to meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday to discuss how to mitigate the continent’s dependence on Russian gas supplies, according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Draghi was cited as saying that the fear of disruptions in flows is generating extra-profits for Gazprom, “to the detriment of everyone.”

PayPal Holdings said it had suspended its services in Russia, including transfers to friends and family as well as goods and services transactions. The company will also suspend remittance service Xoom in Russia. It said it would continue to process customer withdraws for a “period of time.”

PayPal “stands with the international community in condemning Russia’s violent military aggression in Ukraine,” CEO Dan Schulman said in a statement.  

Ukrainian fighters are trying to push back Russian troops in Mykolaiv, a city of half a million people near Odesa, according to a defense ministry update early Saturday. 

Anti-aircraft weapons continues to target Russian planes and helicopters, according the update, which said it had shot down two Sukhoi SU-25 planes in the Chernihiv region north of Kyiv and one in the Donetsk region in the past day. The claim couldn’t be immediately verified.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman was cited by Interfax as saying that Russian armed forces and their separatist allies in Donetsk region continuing to advance on a broad front, and had taken control of a number of villages overnight. 

In a tweet, Ukraine’s foreign minister said Russia was aiming at “maximum civilian damage” and urged a stepped-up response. 

Russia’s military will observe a temporary ceasefire while humanitarian corridors are set up to allow civilians to leave Mariupol on the Black Sea and Volnovakha, about 40 miles (65 km) north, Interfax reported, citing the Defense Ministry. 

Ukraine confirmed the agreement on the corridors and the ceasefire, said Davyd Arakhamiya, a senior member of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s party and part of the negotiating team from Ukraine.

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service won’t block Russian news sources “unless at gunpoint,” Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said in a tweet Saturday. Musk said that some governments had instructed Starlink to do so, specifying that it wasn’t Ukraine. Earlier this week, Ukraine’s digital transformation minister thanked Musk after his SpaceX satellite dishes arrived in the country to keep its internet communication operating amid Russia’s invasion.

Starbucks Corp. said it is donating royalties from its Russian business to humanitarian relief efforts for Ukraine, as international brands face increasing pressure to close stores and suspend operations in the wake of last week’s invasion. The Seattle-based coffee chain has 130 stores in Russia, which are owned and operated by a partner, Chief Executive Officer Kevin Johnson said in a statement Friday.  

Airbnb Inc. said it accepted almost $2 million in bookings in Ukraine from people who have no intention of staying in the accommodation and just want to get money into the hands of the war-torn citizens there.

Some 61,000 nights were booked in Ukraine on March 2-3, according to a tweet by Airbnb Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky. Users in the U.S., U.K. and Canada accounted for nearly three-quarters of total reservations, the company said, adding that it has temporarily waived guest and host fees on bookings in Ukraine.

Russian troops were within 20 miles from a second Ukrainian nuclear plant, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council Friday, without naming the facility. “Putin must stop this madness and he must stop it now. Cooler heads must prevail,” she said. 

The southern Ukrainian facility near Yuzhnoukrainsk is the country’s second largest plant, according to BloombergNEF.

The United Nations Security Council will meet Monday to discuss the humanitarian situation in Ukraine. The French and Mexican missions to the UN are seeking the Council’s approval of a resolution calling for unhindered humanitarian access in Ukraine.

“The world demands that Russia abide by international humanitarian law, which prohibits intentionally targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, and allow humanitarian agencies full and secure access to people in need of aid,” U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council during a meeting on Friday.

Samsung Electronics Co. said it had suspended product shipments to Russia, joining a growing list of companies from Apple Inc. to Microsoft Corp. that are halting sales and services in the country following its invasion of Ukraine last week. 

Exports of all Samsung products ranging from chips to smartphones and consumer electronics have been suspended, according to a person familiar with the matter. 

Bloomberg News will temporarily suspend the work of its journalists inside Russia after President Vladimir Putin signed legislation that criminalizes independent reporting in the country. 

“We have with great regret decided to temporarily suspend our news gathering inside Russia,” Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait said Friday. “The change to the criminal code, which seems designed to turn any independent reporter into a criminal purely by association, makes it impossible to continue…