Sanctions broaden and the fight for Ukraine becomes bloodier in the second week of war
Russia commits to a slog of a campaign, Ukraine entrenches, the West broadens sanctions but fails to escalate military aid to Ukraine, and the sanctions begin to cut both ways
The second week of the war in Ukraine saw the unprecedented sanctions against Russia broaden as companies pulled out of the Russian market, the United States stopped imports of Russian oil and the European Union laid down plans to drastically cut imports of Russian oil and gas.
Those sanctions began to make their effects felt in the West as oil prices soared well above $120 a barrel.
On the ground, Russia doubled down on a military campaign that doesn’t seem to have gone as well as planned, going for the soft tissue of Ukrainian society, besieging and shelling cities and driving refugees past the two million mark.
Commercial decoupling
The severance of Russia’s commercial ties with the West, which began with financial and technology sanctions in the first week of the war, deepened in the second week.
On March 1, US president Joe Biden said the US will close is skies to Russian airlines, and the following day Boeing and Airbus said they would no longer offer technical support and parts for their aircraft in Russia. Aeroflot stopped international flights on March 8 for fear of having its aircraft impounded.
There was an information decoupling, as Russia banned Facebook, Twitter, the US-funded Voice of America, Deutsche Welle and the BBC, among others, in retaliation for the banning of state-run media Sputnik and Russia Today in Europe. US brands McDonalds, Starbucks, Pepsi and Coca Cola stopped trading in Russia.
“Western businesses are completely caught up in a race to demonstrate their revulsion towards what’s going on in Ukraine,” says former UK ambassador David Landsman. “They are withdrawing in large numbers. It’s hard to see them returning any time soon unless there is some sort of compromise negotiated settlement in due course between Ukraine and Russia,” he told Al Jazeera.
The most important sanctions came in the energy sector. The US said it will stop Russian oil imports on March 8, and the European Union unveiled a plan to reduce Russian oil and gas imports by two thirds over a year.
Commission president Ursula Von Der Leyen says the ultimate goal is to become independent of Russian coal, oil and gas, defeating Russia and climate change simultaneously.
“The quicker we switch to renewables and hydreogen, combined with more energy efficiency, the quicker we will be truly independent and master of our own energy system,” she said.
The Commission says it already planned to reduce gas consumption by 100bn cubic metres by 2030 for environmental reasons. The new REPowerEU plan would increase that by half –equivalent to the volume the EU imported from Russia last year.
“It is absolutely clear that a rejection of Russian oil would lead to catastrophic consequences for the global market, “ said Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak on state television. “The surge in prices would be unpredictable. It would be $300 per barrel if not more.”
The US and EU annoucements helped drive Brent crude oil prices to $126 a barrel by March 8.
Trouble in the ground war
Ukrainian resistance against a superior Russian force appeared nothing short of heroic. A Russian convoy 65km long has been bogged down in towns northwest of Kiev, unable to enter the capital. The eastern city of Kharkiv has resisted ferocious attempts to take it.
A Zelenskyy advisor called Kharkiv “the Stalingrad of the 21st century,” a reference to the city in which heroic Russian resistance turned the tide of World War Two.
Also emblematic of Ukrainian resistance has been Mariupol, surrounded by the Russians on March 2. Six days later, a Red Cross spokesman described the situation there as “apocalyptic”, saying residents are running out of food, water, heat and electricity.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that even if Russian forces “come into all our cities”, they will be met with insurgency. “The problem is that for one soldier of Ukraine, we have 10 Russian soldiers, and for one Ukrainian tank, we have 50 Russian tanks.”
His cries for Western air support have gone unheeded, however, as the US has resisted involving NATO allies directly, prompting an outraged reaction on March 4.
“All the people who die from this day forward will also die because of you, because of your weakness, because of your lack of unity,” Zelenskyy said in a night-time address. “The alliance has given the green light to the bombing of Ukrainian cities and villages by refusing to create a no-fly zone.”
Russian tactics appeared to become more desperate, targeting civilians as little progress was made against a determined Ukrainian military.
Ukrainian news agency UNIAN said two cruise missiles hit a hospital in Chernihiv, near the Belarusian border, on March 2. The region’s governor said nine people were killed when Russian fighter jets bombed two schools and houses. A massive explosion rocked central Kiev on the same day. Initial reports were of a rocket striking near the central railway station, where refugees were boarding trains.
In Borodyanka, a small town 60km northwest of Kiev, there was ample evidence that Russian forces had targeted civilian infrastructure on March 3, with supermarkets and residential buildings bombed out by tank fire and missiles.
A Chernihiv official posted further evidence that Russia is shelling residential areas on March 5. A photo showed an unexploded 500kg FAB-500 Soviet bomb sticking out of the ground.
Confronted with civilian deaths, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on March 3 said Russian forces “have a strict order only to use high-precision weapons.” The UN verified on March 8 that 474 Ukrainian civilians had died in the war, but believed the real number to be much higher.
In a hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, top intelligence officials confirmed suspicions that Putin underestimated Ukrainian resistance. “He was confident that he had modernised his military and they were capable of a quick, decisive victory at minimum cost,” CIA director William Burns said.
“What [Putin] might be willing to accept as a victory may change over time, given the significant costs he is incurring,” says Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.
Ukrainian and Western determination have been a surprise to Russia, says Landsman.
“The Ukrainian opposition, the extent of it, was clearlt a surprise to Russia. Western sanctions absolutely were a surprise - they even surprised the West, so they manifestly were a surprise to Russia… so my assumption is Putin must know there are limits to what he can do.”
Can Russia ‘win’ or ‘lose’?
Russian messaging has been bellicose. In a March 3 interview with several television networks, Lavrov said Russia will prosecute its war in Ukraine “to the end”. Russian president Vladimir Putin conveyed a similar message to his French counterpart.
The problem is, no one has defined that end. One view is that Russian military might must eventually prevail.
“Russia’s victory is more or less a given. The question is when it will happen,” says Konstantinos Filis, who directs the Institute of Global Affairs at the American College of Greece. “Russia is greatly superior to Ukraine militarily… Things will be very difficult for the Ukrainians because the Russians have decided to reinforce their troops and their aggression. It may become a bloodbath.”
But Russian officials have said they don’t want to occupy Ukraine, only to “demilitarise” and “neutralise” it.
“It’s clever language that leaves quite a lot of room [for interpretation],” says Landsman, suggesting Russia may be looking for a way out of the war. But it would also be a mistake to believe Russia can accept military and diplomatic humiliation, he says.
“Some people think that Russia can be defeated. But it’s not clear what Russia being defeated means. The chances of someone turning up on Putin’s doorstep tomorrow and removing him and replacing him with someone who accepts all of Ukraine’s demands, Western demands, is infinitesimally small. So there has to be some kind of accommodation of Russia in the end,” says Landsman.
Timeline: Week two of Russia’s War in Ukraine
Tue 1 March: A hundred diplomats walk out on a speech by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Lavrov accuses the West of failing to protect ethnic Russians from Ukraine’s military since 2014.
US president Joe Biden says the US will follow the European Union and Canada in closing its skies to Russian civilian air traffic.
In a hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, top intelligence officials say Putin underestimated Ukrainian resistance.
Wed 2 March: Russian tanks enter Kherson, making the southern Ukrainian town the first major population centre (250,000 people) to fall since the start of the invasion on February 24. Russian aerial bombardment of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, intensifies, with 21 people reported dead over the previous 24 hours.
Mariupol on Ukraine’s coast is surrounded by Russian forces. The mayor describes the attacks there as relentless.
The UN says more than a million refugees have now left Ukraine for neighbouring countries.
Lavrov appears to step up Russian rhetoric, telling Al Jazeera that “a Third World War could only be nuclear.”
Oil climbs to $112 a barrel.
Airbus and Boeing say they will stop supplying spare parts and technical support to Russian airlines in a major economic blow. Most Russian-operated planes are built by the two manufacturers.
Thu 3 March: Britain’s defence ministry says a column of Russian armour heading for Kiev is still stuck 30km outside the city centre, held up by fierce Ukrainian resistance and mechanical problems. Russian forces encircle the port of Mariupol.
Russian president Vladimir Putin speaks by telephone with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron. Putin tells Macron that Russia will achieve its goals in Ukraine. Macron tells Putin not to lie to himself. “Your country will pay dearly… weakened and under sanctions for a very long time,” Macron tells Putin.
“The thought of nuclear war is constantly spinning in the heads of Western politicians, but not in the heads of Russians,” Lavrov tells Western networks, apparently climbing down from his remarks to Al Jazeera the previous day. “I assure you that we will not allow any kind of provocation to unbalance us. But if a real war is unleashed against us, this must be a concern for those who are hatching such plans. And I believe these plans are being hatched.”
Ukrainian and Russian negotiators are due to meet for talks.
Russian state-owned news outlet Sputnik shuts down its operations in the European Union and lays off workers.
The United Nations says more than a million Ukrainians have fled their country.
The International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor says an advance team has departed for Ukraine to investigate possible war crimes.
The International Energy Agency unveils a 10-point plan to reduce dependence on Russian natural gas by a third over a year.
Fri 4 March: Putin blocks Twitter, Facebook, VoA, the BBC and Deutsche Welle among others in Russia. He signs a law punishing fake news with 15 years in prison. CNN and CBS said they would stop broadcasting in Russia immediately. Several independent Russian media are closed.
Russian forces shell Europe’s biggest nuclear plant of Zaporizhzhia in the southeastern city of Enerhodar, causing a fire there and raising fears of another Chernobyl-style nuclear disaster in Europe. Ukrainian forces put it out.
Zelenskyy grows impatient with NATO’s refusal to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine. The US says it will not put its armed forces or those of its NATO allies into direct conflict with Russia.
Sat 5 March : Putin says Ukraine’s statehood is being put in jeopardy as the country continues to resist the Russian invasion. He calls Western sanctions on his country “akin to declaring war.”
US secretary of state Antony Blinken meets his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba on the Polish-Ukrainian border. Kuleba repeats Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s estimate that Russia had lost more than 10,000 troops in the war, plus dozens of aircraft and hundreds of armoured vehicles. Russia put its official death toll at 498 on 3 March.
Russia intensifies shelling of Mariupol, a city of 430,000 on Ukraine’s coast, even violating a self-declared ceasefire and preventing civilians from evacuating along what was supposed to be a safe corridor.
Zelensky urges the US Congress to sanction Russia’s oil and gas sector, and allow east European countries to send him Societ-made aircraft. Congress is also working on a $10bn package of military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
The US urges its citizens to leave Russia immediately, updating an earlier travel advisory not to travel to Russia.
Aeroflot, Russia’s biggest state-owned airline, says it will cease all international flights except to Belarus starting March 8, because of the fear of its foreign-leased aircraft being impounded as part of Western sanctions.
Sun 6 March: Ukraine says Russia is targeting civilians, as it steps up shelling in four cities, Kharkiv in the eats, Mykolaiv and Mariupol on the Black Sea coast, and the outskirts of Kiev.
Mon 7 March: Kiev prepares for siege as a column of Russian armour gradually approaches from the north. Soldiers are reported to have built hundreds of checkpoints throughout the city, ranging from concrete barriers two storeys high to stacks of tyres weighed down with books. Battles rage on Kiev’s northwestern outskirts.
As the US and Europe debate whether to ban Russian oil imports, Brent crude prices reach $139.13 in the first hours of trading, a price not seen since July 2008. Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak warns oil could reach $300 a barrel if Russian exports are sanctioned.
The number of Ukrainian refugees reaches 1.7mn.
Tuesday 8 March: Civilians flee the town of Sumy after the Ukraine war’s first safe corridor is agreed with Russia, but safe passage continues to elude Mariupol, 200,000 of whose residents have been waiting for days to evacuate. A Red Cross spokesman described the situation there as “apocalyptic”, saying residents are running out of food, water, heat and electricity.
The US downs a second Polish offer to transfer Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter aircraft to Ukraine’s air force, saying it does not want NATO to become directly involved in operations. Flying combat aircraft from NATO territory “raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance,” the Pentagon says.
The European Commission unveils REPowerEU, a plan to reduce dependence on Russian natural gas by two thirds by the end of the year, surpassing in ambition the IEA’s plan unveiled on March 3.
The Commission prepares a new round of sanctions that will remove three Belarusian banks from the Swift interbank trading system, targeting additional Russian oligarchs and banning EU exports of naval equipment and software to Russia.
The US imposes a ban on Russian crude oil imports, sending global oil prices up 4%, and bringing the total rise since the Russian invasion on February 24 to 30%.
US brands McDonalds, Starbucks, Pepsi and Coca Cola stop trading in Russia.
Ukrainian refugees soar past the two million mark.
Markets close with Brent crude trading at $126 a barrel.