Here Are All The Latest News And Developments From The Ukraine War: March 21

With newsflow out of Ukraine nothing less than a firehose (of often fake news), with market moving headlines firing every minute, traders can be forgiven if they have just given up following the narrative. To help out, here is a snapshot of all the latest market-moving news out of Ukraine from the last few hours courtesy of Newsquawk:

Discussions/Negotiations

Ukrainian President Zelensky said he is ready to negotiate with Russian President Putin and warned that if peace talks with Russian President Putin fail, it would mean the start of a third global war, according to an interview with CNN. However, a Turkish official said that Russian President Putin is not ready for talks with Ukrainian President Zelensky.

Turkish Foreign Minister said Russia and Ukraine “have almost reached agreement” on four critical points of a potential peace agreement, as fierce fighting continued to devastate the key port city of Mariupol, according to FT.

Russia’s Kremlin says the progress of peace talks with Ukraine is not as big as it should be; there is no basis for possible Putin-Zelensky meeting, significant progress needs to be made first, there will be no ceasefire during the talks.

Russian Defence Ministry called on ‘nationalists’ in Ukraine’s Mariupol to lay down arms and offered humanitarian corridors to both the east and west for this Monday, while it stated that Ukraine has until the early hours on Monday to give its answer on surrendering Mariupol.

Ukrainian Deputy PM Vereschuk said there is no question of surrendering Mariupol.

Ukraine says eight humanitarian corridors have been agreed on Monday, but the city of Mariupol is not included in that list.

Energy/Economic Updates

US threatens to expand sanctions on Russia and said they are nowhere near lifting restrictions, according to Sputnik.

Russian Central Bank Governor Nabiullina said they will start purchasing Russian government bonds and will sell them after the market stabilises.

EU Foreign Representative Borrell says Russia is guilty of “massive” war crimes, the EU is ready to talk about energy sanctions.

Defence/Military

Ukrainian President Zelensky appealed to Israel and said that they know Israel’s air defence is the greatest in the world and could protect Ukraine, while he said the Kremlin is discussing the final solution to the Ukrainian issue in the same way the Nazi’s discussed the European question.

Ukrainian Deputy PM said they plan to send nearly 50 buses on Monday to evacuate people from the Mariupol region, while she added that 7,295 people were evacuated from cities on Saturday as four humanitarian corridors worked and that 3,985 people were evacuated from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia on Sunday.

Kyiv Mayor said there were several blasts in the city’s Podil district with residential houses and the shopping district hit.

China’s ambassador to the US said China will work to de-escalate the Ukrainian conflict and said there is misinformation regarding China providing military assistance to Russia.

UK Ministry of Defence said Russian forces advancing from Crimea are still attempting to circumvent Mykolaiv as they look to drive west towards Odessa and that these forces made little progress during the past week, while it added that Russian naval forces continue to blockade the Ukrainian coast and to launch missile strikes on targets across Ukraine.

US officials see signals the Kremlin is shifting to a new strategy to secure key territorial objectives, according to WSJ.

Luhansk separatists say they have recorded an increase in the intensity of Ukrainian shelling on their areas, especially the  Pervomaysk region, according to Al Jazeera

Kyiv Mayor Klitschko announced a curfew from 18:00GMT today until 05:00GMT on Wednesday 23rd.

Other

Israeli defence sources noted several intel warnings that suggest Iranian intention to carry out attacks via air, sea and on land, according to Israel Radar citing Walla News.

US and Turkey are said to be in talks over a deal for Turkey to send its Russian-made S-400 missile defense systems to Ukraine in exchange for the scrapping of sanctions imposed by Washington, according to Reuters citing sources. The report suggested Turkey is unlikely to agree to such a deal