Lessors are set to terminate hundreds of aircraft leases with Russian airlines following Western sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine that require the contracts be cancelled, Reuters reported. AerCap Holdings, the world's biggest leasing company, said on Monday that it would cease leasing activity with Russian airlines, while BOC Aviation said that most of its leases in Russia would now have to be terminated by March 28. Russia warned the West it would retaliate against sanctions targeting its aviation industry.

Russia's central bank announced a slew of measures on Sunday to support domestic markets, as it scrambled to manage the fallout of harsh Western sanctions over the weekend amid Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reported. The central bank said it would resume buying gold on the domestic market, launch a repurchase auction with no limits and ease restrictions on banks' open foreign currency positions. It also increased the range of securities that can be used as collateral to get loans and ordered market players to reject foreign clients' bids to sell Russian securities.

When the United States barred Americans from doing business with Russian banks, oil and gas developers and other companies in 2014, after the country’s invasion of Crimea, the hit to Russia’s economy was swift and immense. Economists estimated that sanctions imposed by Western nations cost Russia $50 billion a year. Since then, the global market for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets has ballooned, the New York Times reported. That’s bad news for enforcers of sanctions, and good news for Russia.

European Central Bank policymakers are gathering on Thursday for what may have become a crisis meeting as Russia's invasion of Ukraine threatens to derail economic growth in the euro zone and complicate the ECB's path out of negative interest rates, Reuters reported. The ECB's "informal get-together" was aimed at preparing a decision on March 10 on the likely end of the ECB's bond-buying stimulus programme, paving the way for the first rate hike in more than a decade to tackle surprisingly high inflation.

U.S. President Joe Biden unleashed sanctions targeting Russia’s sale of sovereign debt abroad and the country’s elites, responding to what he described as the start of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported. “He’s setting up a rationale to take more territory by force,” Biden said Tuesday at the White House. “This is the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.” Biden said that he’s sending an unspecified number of additional U.S. troops to the Baltics in a defensive move to defend NATO countries.

Germany and the European Union are in a position to decide on further sanctions against Russia in the event of a complete Russian invasion of Ukraine, which cannot be ruled out, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Scholz said Russia's recognition of the two breakaway regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine was not compatible with international law and endangered the sovereignty of Ukraine. "We cannot accept this," Scholz was quoted as saying by broadcaster RTL, adding that respecting borders was important for peace in Europe.

A possible Russian invasion of Ukraine is threatening to deepen a continuing economic crisis in nearby Turkey, which faces the prospect of soaring energy prices and disrupted trade with its two Black Sea neighbors in the event of war, the Wall Street Journal reported. Turkey’s economy has already been shaken by inflation that is among the highest in the world, after a series of unorthodox economic steps and a collapse of the currency’s value over the past year. Turkey is dependent on imported Russian oil and natural gas, as well as tourists from both countries.

NATO allies are bolstering the alliance’s eastern flank in response to Russia’s military buildup around Ukraine, as the European Union set out plans for loans and grants for Kyiv worth more than $1.3 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported. The moves are part of sharpening efforts by the U.S. and its allies to gird for what they believe could be an imminent military invasion of Ukraine, which Russia denies it is planning.

Ukrainian sovereign dollar bonds tumbled into distress territory and Russian bonds suffered sharp falls on Monday as fears of another Russian military foray into Ukraine showed no sign of easing, Reuters reported. The premium investors demand to hold Ukraine bonds over safe-haven U.S. Treasuries as measured by the JPMorgan EMBI Global Diversified index surged past 1,000 basis points for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in March 2020.