Ukraine: The Russian army bombs Kharkiv and tightens the noose on kyiv

Intense aerial bombardments hit Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, on the night of Sunday to Monday, targeting in particular a sports complex of a local university and civilian buildings, according to an AFP journalist. According to the Ukrainian general staff, the Russian forces are concentrating their efforts on Kharkiv, Cherniguiv (north), Sumy (northeast) and Mykolayev (south) and "accumulating their resources to launch an assault" on kyiv.

In the capital, the army stood ready to destroy the last bridge linking the city to its hinterland to the west to halt the advance of Russian tanks. Intense fighting took place all day Sunday on the outskirts of kyiv, according to the Ukrainian regional administration, in particular around the road leading to Zhytomyr (150 km west of kyiv), as well as in Cherniguiv ( 150 km north of the capital). The Russian army also continued its siege of the strategic port of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov in the south-east of the country, where a second attempt at humanitarian evacuation failed on Sunday. And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of preparing to bomb the port of Odessa on the Black Sea.

Ukraine: oil and gold soar, Asian stock markets in freefall

Oil prices continued to soar Monday in Asia, as did the price of gold which exceeded $ 2,000 an ounce, while stock markets in the region tumbled in the face of the repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian war on the world economy . The price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea came close to 140 dollars on Sunday around 11:00 p.m. GMT, close to its absolute record of 147.50 dollars reached in July 2008. The prices of black gold then fell, while continuing to progress at a frantic pace: after 02:45 GMT the barrel of American WTI jumped 7.75% to 124.64 dollars and that of the barrel of Brent from the North Sea soared by 8.79% to 128.49 dollars .

Investors also rushed into gold, the ultimate safe haven, which exceeded 2,000 dollars an ounce in Asian trading on Monday morning, a first since September 2020. Conversely, the equity markets drank the cup : on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the flagship Nikkei index fell by 3.15% at the mid-session break. At 25,166.23 points, it had not fallen so low since the end of 2020.

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