A Russian sovereign default is no longer improbable, though it’s unlikely to trigger a global financial crisis, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said, Bloomberg News reported. With Russia and Russian banks under sanctions by the U.S. and its allies after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s credit rating has faced downgrades. Fitch Ratings said last week that a bond default is “imminent” as a result of measures imposed since the war in Ukraine began on Feb. 24.

France is to introduce a rebate of 0.15 euros ($0.16) per litre of transport fuel to help drivers cope with soaring pump prices, Prime Minister Jean Castex said, Reuters reported. The measure, to apply for four months from April 1, is expected to cost the government just over 2 billion euros, he said. Retail gasoline and diesel prices soared to record highs in many countries across the world this week as Russia's invasion of Ukraine added to market tensions, after economies had begun recovering from the coronavirus pandemic.

The French government is considering whether to revive an ambitious plan to nationalize debt-laden Electricite de France SA and reorganize its business with a focus on nuclear production, Bloomberg News reported. The energy market chaos exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine is giving fresh impetus to France’s long-mooted push to restructure its biggest power supplier. Officials have been having early talks with potential advisers about the idea of buying out EDF’s minority shareholders and delisting the company from the stock market.

Gayle Killilea, former wife of bankrupt property baron Sean Dunne, this week appealed a 2019 U.S. jury verdict ordering her to pay nearly €20 million to the trustee of his US bankruptcy, the Irish Times reported. Killilea’s lawyer Patrick Fahey filed the appeal on Thursday with the US court of appeals for the second circuit in New York. She joined her ex-husband Mr Dunne who flied a separate appeal with the same court last year. Thomas Curran, a lawyer for the bankruptcy trustee, said on Friday he is confident the court will uphold the verdict.

Ukraine's top government economic adviser Oleg Ustenko said on Thursday that invading Russian forces have so far destroyed at least $100 billion worth of infrastructure, buildings and other physical assets, Reuters reported. Ustenko, chief economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, told an online event hosted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics that the war has caused 50% of Ukrainian businesses to shut down completely, while the other half are operating at well below their capacity.

Russia’s government moved closer to seizing and even nationalizing foreign-owned companies that are leaving the market over the invasion of Ukraine while planning measures to coax others into staying, Bloomberg News reported. In the first explicit response to the exodus of foreign businesses from Ikea to McDonald’s Corp., the Economy Ministry has outlined new policies to take temporary control of departing companies where foreign ownership exceeds 25%. Under the proposals, a Moscow court would consider requests from board members and others to bring in external managers.

Aeroflot Russian Airlines PJSC spent billions of dollars over two decades transforming itself from a stodgy, Soviet-era carrier, with bland food and uncomfortable seats, into an award-winning airline flying new jets around the world, the Wall Street Journal reported. In two weeks, all that progress threatens to come undone—providing an example of how one of Russia’s best-known and most internationally connected companies has been threatened by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and the West’s response.

Trading on credit-default swaps, used to insure against non-payment, has skyrocketed this week despite the myriad of questions over whether Russia’s plan to repay some foreign bondholders in rubles could ultimately be judged as a default, Bloomberg News reported. There are even concerns that international sanctions and existing bond terms could complicate any settlement of the $39.7 billion of outstanding contracts. And yet, the swaps suggest a record 71% chance of default within one year and 81% within five years, according to ICE Data Services.

The European Central Bank unexpectedly accelerated its wind-down of monetary stimulus, signaling it’s more concerned about record inflation than weaker economic growth as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens to propel prices even higher, Bloomberg News reported. Calling the war a “watershed” moment for Europe, ECB officials pledged to slow bond buying from the start of May, and said they could halt the program as soon as the third quarter. They tried to temper that by making a subsequent interest-rate hike less automatic.