BOSTON -- S&P Global Ratings has downgraded its assessment of Russia’s ability to repay foreign debt, signaling increased prospects that Moscow will soon default on such loans for the first time in more than a century.
The credit ratings agency issued the downgrade to “selective default” Friday night after Russia arranged to make foreign bond payments in rubles last week when they were due in dollars. It said it didn’t expect Russia to be able to convert the rubles into dollars within a 30-day grace period.
S&P said it believes sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine are likely to increase, impeding its willingness and ability to honor its obligations to foreign debtholders.
The Kremlin has signaled it’s willing to pay its debts but warned it would do so in rubles if its overseas accounts in foreign currencies remain frozen.
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KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR:
— More civilians flee eastern Ukraine after deadly station strike
— War Crimes Watch: A devastating walk through Bucha’s horror
— Intel: Putin may cite Ukraine war to meddle in US politics
— Go to https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine for more coverage
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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
KYIV, Ukraine — U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has traveled to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in show of solidarity.
The two leaders meeting Saturday discussed the “U.K.’s long term support to Ukraine’’ including a new package of financial and military aid, the prime minister’s office said. The visit was not announced in advance. An image of the two leaders at a conference table was posted online by the Ukrainian Embassy in London. The deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andrij Sybiha, said they were meeting in Kyiv.
The visit comes a day after Johnson pledged another 100 million pounds ($130 million) in high-grade military equipment to Ukraine, saying Britain wants to help Ukraine defend itself from continuing Russian assaults.
Speaking Friday at a news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Johnson said he would give Ukraine’s military more Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles, another 800 anti-tank missiles and precision munitions capable of lingering in the sky until directed to their target.
Johnson also promised more helmets, night vision and body armor. The items were in addition to 200,000 pieces of non-lethal military equipment from the UK that had already been promised.
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WARSAW, Poland – The head of the European Union’s executive branch says 10.1 billion euros ($11 billion) have been raised globally in a fundraising event for Ukraine and people who have fled the country invaded by Russia.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was joined at the event in Warsaw by Polish President Andrzej Duda and -- remotely -- by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
At the end of the 90-minute event, a smiling von der Leyen said the donations will go to help refugees, both outside and inside Ukraine.
“We will continue providing support. And once the bombs have stopped falling, we will help the people of Ukraine rebuild their country,” von der Leyen said.
Saturday’s pledging event was held in Warsaw because more than 2.5 million of the 4.4 million people who have fled Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began Feb. 24 have entered Poland. Many have stayed, though some have moved on to other countries. The event aimed to prompt political leaders and global celebrities to provide funding and other donations for the people of Ukraine.
It ended with Julian Lennon singing his father John Lennon’s peace song “Imagine.”
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MOSCOW -- YouTube has banned the channel of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, prompting government officials to renew longtime threats against the platform.
The Duma TV channel reported the ban on the messaging app Telegram, noting that it had 145,000 subscribers and over 100,000 million total views. In comments to the Russian news agency Interfax, Google didn’t give an exact reason for the move, but said the company follows “all applicable sanction and trade compliance laws.”
Russia’s state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor demanded that YouTube unblock the channel. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Saturday that the service “has handed itself a sentence” and urged its users to “download content, transfer it onto Russian platforms. And fast.”
State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin called the move against the parliament’s YouTube channel “another proof of violations of the rights and freedoms of citizens by Washington.”
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MILAN -- Italy’s foreign minister has reportedly told staff that Italy will reopen its embassy in the Ukrainian capital after Easter.
News agency ANSA quoted Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio on Saturday as telling his ministry’s crisis unit that Italy “will be among the first to return” to Kyiv.
He called it “another gesture to demonstrate support for the Ukrainian population, a concrete way to affirm that diplomacy must prevail.”
Di Maio said the return would be coordinated with other European Union nations.
The EU itself announced the return of its ambassador on Friday. On Saturday, EU ambassador Matti Maasikas tweeted a picture of an EU flag atop a flagpole with the words “First things first.”
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KYIV, Ukraine -- Austria’s leader says he expects more European Union sanctions against Russia but is defending his country’s opposition so far to cutting off deliveries of Russian gas.
Chancellor Karl Nehammer spoke Saturday after becoming the latest of several European leaders to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
Nehammer said at a news conference that “we will continue to ratchet up sanctions inside the European Union until the war stops” and that a package of sanctions imposed this week “won’t be the last one.” He acknowledged that “as long as people are dying, every sanction is still insufficient.”
Austria, which gets most of its gas from Russia, is one of the countries that have been resisting a halt to deliveries. Questioned about that Saturday, Nehammer said that EU sanctions are becoming increasingly “accurate” but that “sanctions are effective when they hit those they are directed against, and don’t weaken those imposing sanctions against the one who is conducting war.”
Austria is militarily neutral and not a member of NATO.
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LONDON — Britain’s Ministry of Defense says Russian naval forces are launching cruise missiles into Ukraine to support military operations in the eastern Donbas region and around the cities of Mariupol and Mykolaiv.
In its Saturday morning briefing, the ministry said Russia’s air forces are expected to increase activity in the south and east of Ukraine to further support these operations.
The ministry said these actions come as attempts to establish a land corridor between Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and Russian-controlled parts of the Donbas region “continue to be thwarted by Ukrainian resistance.”
U.K. officials also say Russia is continuing to attack non-combatants, such as those killed at the Kramatorsk railway station in a rocket strike on Friday.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s railway operator says operations are halted at the train station in Kramatorsk, which was damaged in a missile strike Friday, but evacuations of civilians will continue through other stations in eastern Ukraine.
The company said Saturday that evacutions will continue from the stations in Slovyansk and Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region and Novozolotarivka in the Luhansk region.
The statement on the messaging app Telegram said that “the railways do not stop the task of taking everyone to safety.”
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ten humanitarian corridors for civilian evacuations are to open in Ukraine’s east on Saturday, according to Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. The corridors will allow residents to leave a number cities in the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.
Those in Mariupol, Enerhodar, Tokmak, Berdyansk and Melitopol will be able to evacuate to the city of Zaporizhzhia, while those in Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Popasna, Girske and Rubizhne can evacuate to the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region.
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WASHINGTON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country’s security service has intercepted communications of Russian troops that provide evidence of war crimes.
“There are soldiers talking with their parents about what they stole and who they abducted. There are recordings of prisoners of war who admitted killing people,” Zelenskyy said in an excerpt of an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired Friday.
“There are pilots in prison who had maps with civilian targets to bomb. There are also investigations being conducted based on the remains of the dead,” he said in a translation provided by CBS.
Zelenskyy said “everyone who made a decision, who issued an order, who fulfilled an order” is guilty of a war crime. Asked whether he held Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible, he said: “I do believe that he’s one of them.”
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LVIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the missile strike on an eastern train station as another Russian war crime and said Ukraine expects a tough global response.
“Like the massacres in Bucha, like many other Russian war crimes, the missile attack on Kramatorsk should be one of the charges at the tribunal that must be held,” he said during his nightly video address to the nation Friday.
The president told Ukrainians that great efforts would be taken “to establish every minute of who did what,” so that those behind the attack would be held responsible.
Zelenskyy said he spoke with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen Friday and urged the EU to impose a full embargo on Russian oil and gas.
“It is energy exports that provide the lion’s share of Russia’s income and allow the Russian leadership to believe in their impunity,” Zelenskyy said.
