An aggressive Federal Reserve, soaring inflation and geopolitical uncertainty from the war in Ukraine are muddying the outlook for the upcoming US earnings season, leaving some strategists wary of surprises as corporate results kick off this week.

Ukraine’s economic output will likely contract by a staggering 45.1 per cent this year as Russia’s invasion has shuttered businesses, slashed exports and rendered economic activity impossible in large swaths of the country, the World Bank said on Sunday.

AIG, one of the world’s biggest commercial insurers, is considering cutting cover for Russia and Ukraine, to shield itself from the risk of hefty claims as sanctions ratchet up and the war drags on, an insurance broker and a source familiar with the matter said.

China’s factory-gate and consumer prices rose faster than expected in March as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, persistent supply chain bottlenecks and production snags caused by local Covid flare-ups added to commodity cost pressures.

The Federal Reserve is expected to deliver two back-to-back half-point interest rate hikes in May and June to tackle runaway inflation, according to economists polled by Reuters who also say the probability of a recession next year is 40 per cent.

Japan’s government has asked power companies to top up their liquefied natural gas (LNG) reserves and share energy resources, a person familiar with the contingency plan said, as civilian deaths in Ukraine push Tokyo to halt Russian fuel imports.

Germany’s economic growth could fall to 1.4 per cent-1.5 per cent this year, from 2.7 per cent in 2021, with an average of around 590,000 people on reduced-hours lay-off schemes over the course of the year, Labour Minister Hubertus Heil said in an interview with Bild am Sonntag.

Russia will relax temporary capital control measures aimed at limiting a drop in the rouble by allowing individuals to buy cash foreign currency and will also scrap commission for buying forex through brokerages, the central bank said on Friday.

Germany’s banking regulator on Sunday said it had stripped Russia’s VTB of control over its European subsidiary as sanctions hit the second-biggest Russian bank over the war in Ukraine.

Four years ago, fried-chicken chain KFC tweeted from its Canadian account that it would accept bitcoin as payment for its  “buckets”.

Ukraine has banned all imports from Russia, one of its key trading partners before the war with annual imports valued at about $6 billion, and called on other countries to follow and impose harsher economic sanctions on Moscow.

The Russian government said on Sunday it has increased its reserve fund used for emergency spending by 273.4 billion roubles ($3.52 billion) to ensure economic stability against the backdrop of Western sanctions over Ukraine.

Four local garment exporters have filed a case against British clothing retailer Edinburgh Woolen Mill (EWM) claiming Tk 5.98 crore in payments for goods they had shipped.

Russia faces its first sovereign external default in over a century after it made arrangements to make an international bond repayment in roubles earlier this week, even though the payment was due in US dollars.

The United States on Friday broadened its export curbs against Russia and Belarus, restricting access to imports of items such as fertilizer and pipe valves as it seeks to ratchet up pressure on Moscow and Minsk following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Semiconductor chip supply is unlikely to be enough to completely satisfy demand again until 2024, Volkswagen Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Arno Antlitz said in an interview with German daily Boersen-Zeitung on Saturday.

Sri Lanka will need about $3 billion in external assistance within the next six months to help restore supplies of essential items, including fuel and medicines, to manage a severe economic crisis, its finance minister told Reuters on Saturday.

Germany could end Russian oil imports this year, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday, signalling the urgency driving Europe’s biggest economy to wean itself off energy from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

The European Union on Friday formally adopted new sweeping sanctions against Russia, including bans on the import of coal, wood, chemicals and other products which were estimated to slash at least 10 per cent of total imports from Moscow.

Russia’s inflation rate reached 16.7 per cent year-on-year in March, the state statistics agency said Friday, a level not seen since 2015, while food prices have risen even more steeply.