Today’s Russia/Ukraine Update

🇺🇦 Russian troops are on the verge of taking the southeastern city of Mariupol on Day 27 of the invasion, as forces on both sides fought street-by-street through downtown yesterday.

• It would be the first major city to fall under Russian control, though constant shelling has reportedly destroyed between 80% and 90% of Mariupol.
• Ukrainian forces retook the Kyiv suburb of Makariv on Tuesday, according to the country's Defense Ministry.
• Russian and Ukrainian negotiators have met repeatedly in recent days, with little apparent progress on peace talks.
• Officials in Kyiv said around 15,000 Russian troops have been killed since the fighting began; that number hasn’t been independently verified.
• Over 3.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine, per the UN, with 2.1 million of them ending up in neighboring Poland (pop. 38 million).
• National security adviser Jake Sullivan said President Biden would unveil new sanctions against Russia at a NATO meeting in Brussels tomorrow.

How the invasion is impacting…

🚗🚙🛻 Auto sales: Supply chain disruptions made worse by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are expected to cause as much as a 2% decline in global light-vehicle sales this year, according to S&P Global Ratings; the agency had previously predicted sales would rise 4% to 6% in 2022.

☢️ Nuclear energy: Russia enriches more uranium for use in nuclear power plants than any other country in the world. Uranium prices have jumped more than 30% since the start of the war, as the market reacts to fears that sanctions could restrict global access to Russian supply.