Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has suspended its operations in Russia after local tax authorities in Moscow initiated bankruptcy proceedings against its Russian entity, the Wall Street Journal reported. RFE/RL, a U.S. government-funded organization known for broadcasting uncensored news during the Cold War throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries, said that the involuntary filing was part of a series of “Kremlin attacks” that has intensified since Russian forces began their invasion of Ukraine.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has signed a law on using the country's rainy-day National Wealth Fund to buy OFZ government bonds and stocks, the RIA news agency reported on Wednesday. Putin also signed a series of laws enabling a new "capital amnesty" designed to encourage people to return money or financial instruments to Russia without facing tax or other penalties, RIA reported. Read more.

Banks are having conversations with potential buyers on how to get rid of their exposure to Russian corporate loans, but sanctions fears and pricing uncertainty are limiting trading activity and the ability of buyers to act, Reuters reported. Punishing Western sanctions on Moscow in the aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine have prompted some distressed debt buyers to approach banks holding Russian loans to sound out their appetite to potentially sell that exposure at a discount.

European companies are suffering yet more strain on supply chains already snarled up by the coronavirus pandemic as the conflict in Ukraine leads to growing shortages of key components, they warned on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The new snags pose a further threat to economic recovery in Europe, potentially prolonging existing bottlenecks that in some sectors were not expected to clear until next year. The conflict has added to the trade chaos that followed the global economy's emergence from pandemic lockdowns.

Gina Raimondo, the secretary of commerce, issued a stern warning on Tuesday to Chinese companies that might defy U.S. restrictions against exporting to Russia, saying the United States would cut them off from American equipment and software they need to make their products, the New York Times reported. The Biden administration could “essentially shut” down Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation or any Chinese companies that defy U.S. sanctions by continuing to supply chips and other advanced technology to Russia, Raimondo said.

Italy's economic growth will be hit by the consequences of the war in Ukraine, including the surging energy costs, Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. "Growth will certainly be weakened," Draghi told parliament, adding that his government would do everything it could "to mitigate the effects" on households and companies. The government's official forecast for this year, made last autumn, envisages a rise in gross domestic product of 4.7%, but this is now widely considered unrealistic.

The European Commission has prepared a new package of sanctions against Russia and Belarus over the invasion of Ukraine that will hit additional Russian oligarchs and politicians and three Belarusian banks, three sources told Reuters on Tuesday. The draft sanctions were adopted by the EU executive on Tuesday morning and will be discussed by EU ambassadors at a meeting starting at 1400 GMT, one source said. The draft package will ban three Belarusian banks from the SWIFT banking system and add several more oligarchs and Russian lawmakers to the EU blacklist, the sources told Reuters.

The European Commission published plans on Tuesday to cut the EU's dependency on Russian gas by two-thirds this year and end its reliance on Russian supplies of the fuel "well before 2030," Reuters reported. he European Union executive said it will do so by switching to alternative supplies and expanding clean energy more quickly under the plans, which will largely be the responsibility of national governments for implementing.

Russia's central bank announced on Tuesday a series of steps to help financial market players such as private pension funds and management companies cope with the current "crisis situation," including relaxing some regulations, Reuters reported. Russia's financial markets have been thrown into turmoil by severe economic sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.

The European Union is discussing a plan to jointly issue bonds on a potentially massive scale to finance energy and defense spending as the bloc copes with the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported. The proposal may be presented after the EU’s leaders hold an informal summit in Versailles, France, that starts Thursday, according to officials familiar with the preparations. Officials are still working out the details on how the debt sales would work and how much money they intend to raise, depending on the guidance they receive from leaders in this week’s meeting.