French energy giant TotalEnergies said Tuesday that it will stop buying Russian oil and petroleum products by the end of this year as well as suspend activities in the country amid Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The company said it has committed to "act responsibly" and strictly comply with European sanctions with regard to its business in Russia given the worsening situation in Ukraine.

It will now procure oil and gas for European countries from Poland and Saudi Arabia.

"TotalEnergies has unilaterally decided to no longer enter into or renew contracts to purchase Russian oil and petroleum products, in order to halt all its purchases of Russian oil and petroleum products as soon as possible and by the end of 2022 at the latest," it said.

The company will terminate contracts with the Druzhba pipeline from Russia for oil supply to the Leuna refinery in eastern Germany and replace it with oil imports from Poland. For the gasoil shortfall in Europe, it will import petroleum products from the Satorp refinery in Saudi Arabia and other continents.

The company rebuffed accusations of "complicity in war crimes" for continuing projects in Russia and said they were "unfounded."

It clarified that TotalEnergies does not operate any oil and gas fields or any liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants in Russia.

It is, however, a minority shareholder in several non-state-owned Russian companies, including Novatek (19.4%), Yamal LNG (20%), Arctic LNG 2 (10%) and TerNefteGaz (49%), and is a 20% partner in the Kharyaga joint venture operated by Zarubezhneft.

TotalEnergies has now decided to gradually suspend activities in these companies and put on hold business developments for batteries and lubricants.

It will also stop further capital investment for the development of projects in Russia, it said./aa

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is closely engaged with Ukraine on how to apply the best crisis management measures to prevent its economic collapse, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said Tuesday.

"I would say that money is important, but support in how to keep the financial system functioning is equally important," Georgieva said in a live discussion held by US news publication Foreign Policy.

"The devastation of the Ukrainian economy breaks my heart. We are likely to see shrinkage that could be a third of what it was before the war. Imagine how that translates into hardship on people," she said.

Georgieva noted that the IMF immediately responded to a request by Ukraine for $1.4 billion in emergency funding to keep the country functioning and support vulnerable people and the administration in securing water and electricity in war-affected areas.

The IMF chief said Russia's war on Ukraine came at a time when the world economy was yet to recover from the coronavirus pandemic-induced crisis.

"What we were striving for is for (global economic) growth to go up and inflation, which has become a problem, to go down. Instead, we have the exact opposite. Growth is going down, inflation is going up," she said.

"We are assessing the impact of the war and the sanctions in different parts of the world in different categories of countries," she added.

Georgieva said the first category of countries consists of immediate neighbors of Russia and Ukraine, which have relatively weak economies that rely on trade.

Second are countries that receive refugees, which climbed to 3.3 million people, she noted. The third are countries that depend on imports of energy and food from Russia and Ukraine.

"Higher energy and higher food prices mean devastation. We encourage countries to direct the little policy space they have to those that are most vulnerable," she added./aa

European stock markets closed higher on Tuesday.

The STOXX Europe 600, which includes around 90% of the market capitalization of the European market in 17 countries, rose 3.86 points, or 0.85%, to close at 458.65 points.

London's FTSE 100 gained 34 points, or 0.46%, to finish at 7,476.

Germany's DAX 30 added 146 points, or 1.02%, to end the day at 14,473, while France's CAC 40 was up 77 points, or 1.16%, to 6,659.

Italy's FTSE MIB increased 239 points, or 0.98%, to close at 24,533.

Spain's IBEX 35 was the best performer of the day, soaring 98 points, or 1.17%, to 8,487./aa

President Joe Biden will announce new US and allied sanctions on Russia in response to its ongoing war against Ukraine, a senior American official said Tuesday.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House that Biden will announce the new economic penalties as part of a coordinated action with US partners and will further tighten existing sanctions to crack down on "evasion, and to ensure robust enforcement."

Biden will depart Tuesday for Brussels and participate in a series of meetings beginning March 24, including a NATO summit and European Council meeting, to discuss ongoing western concerns about Russia's war.

As the war nears its one-month mark, Sullivan offered a somber assessment.

"There will be hard days ahead in Ukraine, hardest for the Ukrainian troops on the frontlines and the civilians under Russian bombardment," he said. "This war will not end easily or rapidly."

Still, Sullivan maintained that Russia has "manifestly failed to" achieve it objectives in Ukraine and has so far "achieved the opposite."

"The brave citizens of Ukraine are refusing to submit. They're fighting back. They're defending their homes, they're defending their cities and although Russia may take more territory in these brutal military operations, it will never take the country away from the Ukrainian people," he said.

The comments come hours after a senior Pentagon official said Russia has lost more than 10% of forces it sent into Ukraine.

The official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said Moscow now has "slightly below" 90% of the forces it amassed in Belarus and western Russia ahead of its military operation that began Feb. 24.

On Monday, a pro-Kremlin tabloid reported what it said was Russian Defense Ministry data indicating 9,861 Russians have been killed and 16,153 injured during the war. The report from Komsomolskaya Pravda was quickly taken down.

The Russian Defense Ministry has not publicly identified the number of casualties that Russia has sustained since early March when it said 498 soldiers had died.

According to UN estimates, at least 953 civilians have been killed and around 1,557 others injured in Ukraine since Russia began its attack on its western neighbor. However, the UN has warned that the true toll is likely to be much higher because it has not been able to gain access to areas of heightened hostilities.

The war has also driven 10 million people from their homes, either internally or as refugees who fled abroad, according to the UN refugee agency./aa

At least 953 civilians have been killed and 1,557 others wounded since Russia launched a war on Ukraine on Feb. 24, as the number fleeing the country exceeded 3.5 million, the UN said on Tuesday.

In a statement, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that 40 children were among the people killed in Ukraine.

Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems and missile and airstrikes, the statement said.

“OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, especially in government-controlled territory and especially in recent days, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed,” it added.

The human rights office said it noted a report of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine which said that 117 children had been killed and more than 155 injured since Russia launched the war.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said that it had verified 62 attacks on health care in Ukraine that have caused 15 deaths and 37 injuries.

The head of the Europe regional office of the WHO visited the Moldovan capital of Chisinau on Tuesday, where he held a press conference with the country’s health minister after holding talks with the president.

Terrible toll

“The war in Ukraine has taken a terrible toll on the health and well-being of millions of people, both physical and mental, triggering the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War,” Kluge said.

Moldova is a former Soviet republic like Ukraine with a population of just over 4 million, but some 368,000 people fleeing the war have passed through it.

Poland, also a former Soviet bloc country, has taken more than 2.1 million refugees fleeing the war.

Paloma Cuchi, WHO representative in Poland, told UN journalists in Geneva that the latest figures show 6.5 million have been displaced internally within Ukraine.

She said that about two-thirds of refugees want to stay in Poland, close to home.

“Access to health care is severely restricted in Ukraine. On top of that, refugees have a long, difficult, and dangerous journey to the border of Poland,” said Cuchi.

She said: “Children who have been traveling for days (2-3 days) without proper food or water are tired and worried.

“Senior refugees have been without their medications for days, leading to decompensated diabetes, blood pressure, and other health problems. Pregnant women are without prenatal care.”

Romania, another neighbor of Ukraine, has accepted more than 543,000 refugees, Hungary over 317,000, and Slovakia around 253,000.

Russia has also received more than 252,000 refugees./aa