In the space of a single day, 28 February, Vladimir Putin’s “Fortress Russia” collapsed. The rouble plunged by about 30 percent, and Russian authorities closed all financial markets. Russians raced to ATM machines to withdraw as much money as they could, desperate to exchange it for anything that wasn’t the rouble.

The decision by many multinational corporations to exit Russia, after decades of engagement between global business and Russia’s state-dominated economy, indicates that investors can no longer rely on the regime to enforce the rule of law. Russian President Vladimir Putin, once regarded as a modernizing autocrat, is now clearly driven by personal obsessions rather than any rational cost-benefit calculation.

With war raging in Ukraine, China’s annual “Two Sessions” convey an image of a country in denial. As the Communist Party and its advisory body gather in Beijing this month, there has been little or no mention of a seismic disruption in the world order – an omission that is all the more glaring in view of China’s deep-rooted sense of its unique place in history. With its unabashed great power aspirations, modern China may well be at a decisive juncture.

Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had met face-to-face in Beijing, culminating in a joint document – and then they went off to see the opening of the Winter Olympic Games. Days after the Games ended, Russia invaded Ukraine.China's government has neither condemned nor condoned the attack and has even refrained from calling it an "invasion" in the first place.

More than 1.5 million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, according to the latest UN data on Sunday.1,534,792The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had recorded 1,534,792 refugees on its dedicated website by 1335 GMT, almost 166,000 more than the previous count on Saturday.Authorities and the UN expect the flow to intensify as the Russian army continues to advance into Ukraine, particularly as it approaches the capital, Kyiv."More than 1.5

Blocking the Russian central bank’s foreign-exchange reserves was a brilliant move. Disconnecting some Russian banks from the SWIFT financial messaging system was helpful. And pursuing the offshore wealth of Putin’s cronies is appropriate. But none of these sanctions have stopped the Russian invasion of Ukraine for one reason, and none of them will.The reason is simple: Russia continues to export oil and gas.

Here are the latest developments in Russia's war in Ukraine:Ceasefire Collapses Russia resumes its offensive against the besieged south-eastern city of Mariupol hours after agreeing to a ceasefire to allow residents trapped by the fighting to leave which Ukraine says it violated.Officials in Mariupol had announced plans for a large-scale evacuation during the ceasefire but later said they had to postpone the operation in the face of continued Russian shelling.Russia accused Ukra

Ukraine accused the Kremlin of "nuclear terror" and the West expressed fury on Friday after Europe's largest atomic power plant was attacked and seized by invading Russian forces, which continued to shell major cities.Fighting and a fire at the Zaporizhzhia plant triggered an emergency United Nations (UN) Security Council meeting, after which President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was ready for talks – if all Russia's demands were first met.The six reactors at Zaporizhzhia,

Some weeks can feel like decades, and this week has been one of them. With Russia’s naked act of aggression against Ukraine, the tragedy of war has erupted in Europe once again. Russian forces have shelled residential housing, schools, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure. The Kremlin’s propaganda machine has been pushed into overdrive in its effort to justify the unjustifiable.

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly adopted a resolution that "demands" Russia "immediately" withdraw from Ukraine, in a powerful rebuke of Moscow's invasion by a vast majority of the world's nations.After more than two days of extraordinary debate, which saw the Ukrainian ambassador accuse Russia of genocide, 141 out of 193 UN member states voted for the non-binding resolution.China was among the 35 countries which abstained, whi