Marks & Spencer has just put out a statement. It has suspended shipments to its Turkish franchisee’s Russian business.

It said it was “doing everything we can to support the people of Ukraine” and in response to the growing refugee crisis, announced a £1.5m package to support the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and UNICEF to help children and families in need.

This is made up of a kickstart £500,000 donation to UNHCR with a further £500,000 for matched fundraising for all its global staff and double donations on Sparks transactions to support UNICEF, and activation of till-point and online giving in the UK.

M&S is also sending 20,000 units coats and thermals for families in need, worth a further £500,000, to Ukraine, where it temporarily shut its 10 stores a week ago. In Russia, it has 48 stores with 1,200 employees.

British drinks group Halewood has halted production of its JJ Whitley vodka in Russia, reports our consumer affairs correspondent Zoe Wood.

The company, which owns a distillery in St Petersburg, has moved production to its manufacturing site in Chorley, Lancashire. A spokeswoman said Halewood was “100% opposed to the Russian Army invasion of Ukraine”. “We have expressed our support to our Ukrainian customers, our largest export market.”

The company has also removed references to Russia from the vodka brand’s marketing, according to The Grocer magazine which first reported the story.

Here is our full story on the UK government’s decision to block Russian aviation and space companies from accessing insurance through the London Market:

Western sanctions must be extended to include all Russian banks, ending the carve-out for energy-related Russian institutions, the UK foreign secretary has said following a meeting in Vilnius with foreign ministers from the three Baltic countries.

Liz Truss said the UK “was trying to make sure the Russian economy is crippled so that it can no longer be able to fund its war machine”, adding that she hoped the Russian people would draw their conclusions if this happened.

The boss of the British fund manager Schroders, Peter Harrison, has said that Russian stocks and bonds are “in the realms of utterly uninvestable”.

As Russia continues to bombard Ukrainian cities, its international isolation has deepened. Harrison told Reuters that the invasion “will fundamentally change the nature of Europe for a very long time to come”.

Schroders’ holdings of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus-exposed securities amount to less than 0.1% of the fund manager’s total assets.

Like other asset managers, Schroders has pending sell orders on Russian stocks but is unable to to complete any sales because the Moscow stock exchange has been suspended all week.

Harrison said the situation for foreign investors is likely to worsen further. Referring to Russia’s currency reserves, he said:

My anticipation would be that sanctions get stronger, and the cumulative impact of running down reserves will be felt ever more acutely, so things that are seemingly difficult now will feel impossible in a week’s time.

Online booking firm Expedia has stopped selling travel in and out of Russia, one of the first travel companies to announce the change, reports our travel correspondent Gwyn Topham.

An Expedia spokesperson said:

In response to recent acts and government-imposed sanctions weighed against Russia, we have ceased the sale of travel into and out of Russia.

We are saddened by what continues to unfold in Ukraine and will continue to do what we can to support impacted travelers, partners, and our team members with families and friends in the affected areas.

The move is unlikely to cost Expedia much, with sanctions and flight bans effectively curtailing the - already relatively limited - tourism from the West into Russia, and vice versa, for the foreseeable future.

However, online travel competitors such as Opodo were still selling future flight and hotel packages to Russia on Thursday, and AirBnB was listing Russian vacation properties.

LVMH, the owner of Louis Vuitton, Givency and Christian Dior, as well as Dom Perignon and other top Champagne brands and Glenmorangie, said it was providing “essential financial and operational assistance” to its 150 employees in Ukraine and donating €5m to the Red Cross. It didn’t mention trading in Russia, reports our retail correspondent Sarah Butler.

Pressure is growing on luxury and other western brands to pull out of Russia after it invaded Ukraine.

Diageo, which makes Smirnoff vodka and Guinness, has paused exports to Russia and Ukraine, while Coca-Cola HBC has halted production at its bottling factory in Kyiv and evacuated workers.

Among the western companies pulling out of Russia, the online fashion retailer Boohoo said it had suspended sales to Russia immediately after the invasion a week ago, and closed its Russian trading websites.

The company said:

Boohoo is deeply concerned about the tragic developments in Ukraine. Immediately following the invasion, the group suspended sales to Russia, and also closed its Russian trading websites. Sales made by the group into Russia are not material, totalling less than 0.1% of group revenues.

The west has declared all-out financial war with Russia. What does this mean? asks David Edgerton, Hans Rausing Professor of the history of science and technology and professor of modern British history at King’s College London.

War is never just a matter of soldiers and weapons. Indeed, economic warfare has been a central overt aspect of war, especially obvious since the beginning of the 20th century. It still is today, but we call it “sanctions”. But sanctions are a form of war, not an alternative to it, and like war, dangerous, damaging and unpredictable in impact.

On Sunday night and Monday morning, the US and Europe imposed the most crippling and severe sanctions ever levelled against a G20 country. Russia has been treated like Iran, North Korea, Venezuela. Russian money, until recently so eagerly sought, so politically efficacious, not least in London, has been sterilised.

The economic war that the EU and Nato members have launched against Russia is mainly financial, and technological, cutting off the Russia state from its overseas assets, which are now unusable, and preventing it from buying all sorts of critical equipment. The overseas operations of Russian financial institutions have been hobbled and Russian financial institutions expelled from the technical mechanisms of global capitalism. The consequences have been clear, a huge devaluation of the rouble, a doubling of rouble interest rates, potential runs on domestic banks, and the possibility of inflation. The Russian state has been financially disarmed, externally at least.

The attack is not a total one, quite deliberately so. Russia can still sell its two main exports for hard cash, energy and grain, but that is a measure of the strength of the west. It does not want to deprive the world economy of supplies at a time of rising commodity prices. But who is in charge is completely clear, and what expectations are also. Foreign investors in Russia are pulling out as best they can, like BP and Shell, and cultural and sporting bodies are acting to ban Russia. Social media imposes controls, mendacious broadcasters banned.

Overnight, the credit ratings agency Fitch cut its rating on Russia’s debt to “junk” status. It also downgraded 10 Ukrainian companies.

Fitch said the severity of sanctions placed on Russia “represents a huge shock to Russia’s credit fundamentals” and could “undermine its willingness to service government debt”. The ratings agency warned:

Developments will weaken Russia’s external and public finances, severely constrain its financing flexibility, markedly reduce trend GDP growth, and elevate domestic and geopolitical risk and uncertainty.

The Russian economy could shrink by 7% this year, according to a Goldman Sachs forecast – which would plunge it into a deeper recession than the one caused by Covid-19 as a result of western sanctions and the country’s increasing isolation after invading Ukraine.

The European Union is considering excluding banks in Belarus from the Swift global payments system, as it has already done for seven Russian banks, an EU official said on Thursday, according to Reuters. It quoted the official as saying:

On the Swift side, we’re also looking now at the preparation of the equivalents for the Belarus financial sector, but knowing that SWIFT is not as strategically important in the Belarus economy as it is in the Russian side.

Belarus is a major exporter of timber, and mounting sanctions against the country could drive up timber prices.

Yesterday, the UK sanctioned four Belarusian arm chiefs and two military enterprises, in a first wave of sanctions against the country for its role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko had aided and abetted Russia’s invasion, by allowing Russian forces to attack Ukraine from Belarus.

France’s Société Générale, which is one of the most exposed banks to Russia, has warned that its assets in the country could be confiscated in a worst-case scenario.

The bank, which has $20bn exposure to Russia and gets nearly 3% of its profits from Russia, said:

The group has more than enough buffer to absorb the consequences of a potential extreme scenario, in which the group would be stripped of property rights to its banking assets in Russia.

The group is conducting its business in Russia with the utmost caution and selectivity, while supporting its historical clients.

Italy’s biggest bank Intesa Sanpaolo is carrying out a strategic review of its presence in Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

European banking shares have been battered over the past week, but traded higher today.

Regulators are preparing for a possible closure of the European arm of Russia’s second-biggest lender, VTB Bank. The European arm of Sberbank, the country’s biggest bank, was closed on Tuesday night after a run on deposits.

Citigroup could face billions of dollars of losses at its Russian operations and is helping some of its 200 staff in Ukraine leave the country. The US bank’s exposure to Russia was nearly $10bn at the end of last year.

The drinks giant Diageo, which makes Smirnoff vodka and Guinness, has paused exports to Russia and Ukraine. A spokesperson told Reuters:

Our priority is the safety of our people in Ukraine and the wider region.

Here’s our full story on the London Stock Exchange suspending trading in 27 companies with strong links to Russia, including energy and banking giants Gazprom and Sberbank.

The LSE said it was moving to block trading in the companies, which also include EN+, Lukoil and Polyus, with immediate effect “in light of market conditions, and in order to maintain orderly markets”.

International pressure is taking an increasing toll on Russian businesses, while the invasion of Ukraine is also disrupting those with operations in the region, with miners Evraz, in which Roman Abramovich owns a 29% stake, and Polymetal dropping out of the FTSE 100 in its quarterly review as their market values have plummeted.

European stock markets have given up their small gains in early trading and have turned negative again.

The FTSE 100 in London has fallen 21 points, or 0.23%, to 7,407 while Germany’s Dax is 0.65% lower, and France’s CAC and Italy’s FTSE MiB are flat.

Polymetal, the Anglo-Russian precious metals miner, is the biggest faller on the FTSE 100, down 29%. The company has been relegated from the index, along with Evraz, and will be listed in the FTSE 250 from next week.

Natural gas prices continue to climb, and the British benchmark is approaching the record high hit at the end of last year. It is currently 8.3% higher at 426.9p per therm, not far from the all-time high of around 450p in December.

The Dutch April gas futures contract has gained more than 12% to €186 per megawatt hour, setting a new record.

Stock markets in Europe are mixed at the open, after Asian shares edged cautiously higher.

The UK’s FTSE 100 index has edged 21 points, or 0.3%, higher to 7,451. France’s CAC is flat, Spain’s Ibex has slipped 0.3% and Italy’s FTSE MiB is 0.5% ahead.

In London, the London Stock Exchange is the top riser after the company almost doubled pre-tax profits to to £987m last year. The shares have jumped nearly 10%. The commodities trader Glencore, mining stocks Anglo American, Antofagasta and Rio Tinto and the oil giant BP are the other main risers, as they stand to benefit from the surge in oil and commodities prices. Taylor Wimpey, the housebuilder, has gained 1.9% after bumper results.

Coca-Cola HBC has halted production at its bottling factory in Kyiv and evacuated employees following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The London-listed company, one of the main bottlers for Coca-Cola worldwide, generated a fifth of its sales and operating profit from Russia and Ukraine last year.