TAIPEI – Taiwan‘s military strategists have been studying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the country’s resistance, for the island’s own battle strategy in the event its giant neighbor China ever makes good on its threat to take them by force.

While Taiwan‘s government has not reported any unusual activity by the military in China, which views the island as its own territory, Taipei has raised its alert level.

Russia’s use of precision missiles, as well as Ukraine‘s tactically well thought through resistance despite being outmanned and outgunned, are being carefully watched in security circles in Taiwan, whose own forces are likewise dwarfed by China‘s.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has championed the idea of “asymmetric warfare”, to make its forces more mobile and hard to attack, with for example vehicle-mounted missiles.

Ma Cheng-Kun, director of the Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies at Taiwan‘s National Defense University, said Ukraine had used the same concept with mobile weapons to stymie Russian forces.

“Ukraine‘s military has been making full use of asymmetric warfare, very effectively, and so far successfully holding off Russia’s advance,” added Ma, a government advisor on China policy.

“That’s exactly what our armed forces have been proactively developing,” he said, pointing to weapons like the lightweight and indigenously-developed Kestrel shoulder-launched anti-armor rocket designed for close-in warfare.

“From Ukraine‘s performance we can be even more confident in our own.”

Taiwan has been developing other missiles which can reach far into China.

Last week, the defense ministry said it plans to more than double its yearly missile production capacity to close to 500 this year, including the upgraded version of the Hsiung Feng IIE missile, the longer-range Hsiung Sheng land-attack missile which military experts say is capable of hitting targets further inland in China. Read full story

Taiwan‘s Defense Ministry says it has a “close grasp” of the international security situation and that it is working hard to “improve its armaments and national defense combat capability all the time” but that the military is “not provocative”.

NATURAL BARRIER

There are big differences however between Taiwan and Ukraine‘s positions that have offered reassurance.

Taiwan‘s government has repeatedly pointed out, for example, the natural barrier of the Taiwan Strait which separates it from China. Ukraine has a long land border with Russia.

Strategists say Taiwan can also easily detect signs of Chinese military movements and make preparations ahead of an invasion in which China would need to mobilize hundreds of thousands of soldiers and equipment like ships, which could be easily targeted by Taiwanese missiles.

To put boots on the ground China would have to cross the strait, “so it’s a much higher risk” for China, said Su Tzu-yun, an associate research fellow at Taiwan‘s top military think tank, the Institute for National Defense and Security Research.

It’s not only about hardware.

Looming in the background is the perennial debate – given new focus by the Ukraine war – about whether U.S. forces would ride to Taiwan‘s aid in the event of a Chinese attack. Washington practices “strategic ambiguity” on the subject, giving no clear answer either way.

Lo Chih-cheng, a senior lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party who sits on parliament’s defense and foreign affairs committee, said the Biden administration sending a team of top former officials to Taiwan last week shortly after Ukraine was invaded should dispel the idea that the United States is not to be relied on.

“At this time it sent a message to the other side of the strait, to Taiwan‘s people, that the United States is a trustworthy country,” he told a party podcast on Tuesday.

Taiwan, a major semiconductor producer, hopes its geographic and supply chain importance makes it different from Ukraine.

But the Biden administration repeatedly ruling out sending troops to Ukraine has caused unease for some in Taiwan.

“Do people in Taiwan really think now that the West and the United States will still come to save us?” said Chao Chien-min, a former deputy head of Taiwan‘s Mainland Affairs Council now at Taiwan‘s Chinese Culture University. – Reuters

WASHINGTON/LVIV, Ukraine – A U.S. ban on imports of Russia‘s oil ratcheted up punishment for the invasion of Ukraine on Tuesday as McDonald’s and Starbucks closed outlets and Moscow promised safe passage for some people to flee.

As the number of refugees created by the biggest assault on a European country since World War Two surpassed 2 million, several of the most internationally famous brands added to the Kremlin’s global isolation on the 13th day of the incursion.

McDonald’s, a symbol of capitalism that opened in Russia as the Soviet Union fell, and coffeehouse chain Starbucks will temporarily close stores, while Pepsi will stop selling its soft drink brands and Coca-Cola is halting business in the country. Read full story

Washington, meanwhile, imposed an immediate ban on imports of Russian energy, sparking a further increase in the oil price, which rose around 4% on Tuesday. Prices have surged more than 30% since Russia‘s incursion began on Feb. 24. O/R

Russia – the world’s second-largest exporter of crude – has warned the cost will skyrocket further if the West implements bans.

Despite the prospect of higher household bills, U.S. President Joe Biden said President Vladimir Putin needed to face consequences for the assault. Read full story

“The American people will deal another powerful blow to Putin’s war machine,” he said.

The Kremlin describes its actions as a “special operation” to disarm Ukraine and unseat leaders it calls neo-Nazis.

Ukraine and Western allies call this a baseless pretext for an invasion that has raised fears of wider conflict in Europe and could deal a further hit to the world economy as it tries to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

Civilians fled the besieged city of Sumy on Tuesday in the first successful “humanitarian corridor” opened since Russia‘s invasion but Ukraine accused Russian forces of shelling another evacuation route, from Mariupol in the south of the country.

Talks between Kyiv and Moscow over safe passage have previously failed, with Ukraine opposing routes out of the country to Russia or its ally Belarus.

Moscow is ready to provide humanitarian corridors so people can leave capital Kyiv and four other cities – Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Mariupol – on Wednesday, Mikhail Mizintsev, head of Russia‘s National Defence Control Centre, was quoted as saying by the Tass news agency.

“In order to ensure the safety of civilians and foreign citizens, Russia will observe a regime of silence from 10 am Moscow time (0700 GMT) on March 9 and is ready to provide humanitarian corridors,” he said. It was unclear if the proposed routes would pass through Russia or Belarus.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy renewed calls on Tuesday for no-fly zones, something the West has rejected for fears of escalating the conflict.

The United States turned down a surprise Polish offer to transfer MiG-29 fighter jets to a U.S. base in Germany to help replenish Ukraine‘s air force.

The prospect of flying combat aircraft from NATO territory into the war zone “raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance,” the Pentagon said. Read full story

Instead, the West has focussed its pressure on sanctions, mainly on individuals and financial institutions. Up until now, oil and natural gas had been excluded.

The United States is not a leading buyer of Russian oil and Europeans, who are far more reliant on it, have been reluctant to follow suit.

Britain, however, said it would also phase out the import of Russian oil and oil products by the end of 2022, while the EU published plans to cut its reliance on Russian gas by two thirds this year. Read full storyRead full story

Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of Russia‘s State Duma lower house of parliament, said the measures would hurt Europe while helping the United States.

“By promoting sanctions against Russian energy resources, Washington is seeking to occupy the European market,” he said in an online post.

‘APOCALYPTIC’

In Mariupol, hundreds of thousands of people have been sheltering under bombardment for more than a week. Many tried to leave on Tuesday along a safe corridor but Ukraine‘s foreign ministry said Russian forces violated a ceasefire and shelled it.

Moscow denies targeting civilians.

International Committee of the Red Cross spokesman Ewan Watson said people in Mariupol were fast running out of electricity, heat, food, and drinking water.

“The situation in Mariupol is apocalyptic,” he said.

Russia opened a separate corridor out of the eastern city of Sumy. Buses left for Poltava further west, only hours after a Russian air strike which regional officials said had hit a residential area and killed 21 people. Reuters could not verify the incident.

Russia said 723 people had been evacuated via that corridor, including 576 Indian nationals.

Residents were also leaving Irpin, a frontline Kyiv suburb.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian troops repulsed efforts by Russian forces to enter the eastern city of Kharkiv on Tuesday and foiled a planned operation by 120 Russian paratroopers near the border, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said.

Five people, two of them children, were killed late on Tuesday when Russian planes attacked the town of Malyn, some 100 kilometres (62 miles) northwest of Kyiv, and destroyed seven houses, the state emergency service said in an online post. Reuters was unable to corroborate.

The United Nations human rights office said it had verified 1,335 civilian casualties in Ukraine, including 474 killed and 861 injured, since the invasion began on Feb. 24. The real toll is likely higher, it said.

A total of 2 million people, mostly women and children, have fled, according to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.

ADVANCE SLOWED

Western countries say Russia‘s initial battle plan for a rapid strike to topple Ukraine‘s government failed early in the war, and Moscow has adjusted tactics for longer sieges of cities.

“The tempo of the enemy’s advance has slowed considerably, and in certain directions where they were advancing it has practically stopped,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych told a briefing on Tuesday.

Ukraine‘s defence ministry said Vitaly Gerasimov, first deputy commander of Russia‘s 41st army, was killed on Monday, the second Russian major general killed during the invasion. Russia‘s defence ministry could not be reached for comment.

The main Russian assault force heading towards Kyiv has been stuck on a road north of the capital. But to the south, Russia has made more progress along the Black and Azov Sea coasts.

Within Russia, the war has led to a severe new crackdown on dissent, with the last remaining independent media largely shut last week and foreign broadcasters banned.

Russian police arrested at least 100 protesters against the invasion of Ukraine on Tuesday, the OVD-Info monitoring group said. Police made no comment. – Reuters

VIENNA – Western powers on Tuesday warned Russia against wrecking an almost completed deal on bringing the United States and Iran back into compliance with the 2015 nuclear accord, as Iran‘s top negotiator was set to return from consultations in Tehran.

Eleven months of talks to restore the deal which lifted sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear program have reached their final stages.

But they have been complicated by a last-minute demand from Russia for guarantees from the United States that Western sanctions targeting Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine would not affect its business with Iran.

U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said Russia was seeking to reap extra benefits from its participation in the effort to restore the nuclear agreement, but it will not succeed.

“Russia is trying to up the ante and broaden its demands with regard to the (nuclear deal) and we are not playing ‘Lets make a deal‘,” Nuland, the No. 3 U.S. diplomat, told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

Iran‘s top negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani is due back in Vienna on Wednesday after unexpectedly returning to Tehran on Monday for consultations, an Iranian and a European official said.

The talks’ coordinator, Enrique Mora of the European Union, said on Monday the time had come for political decisions to be taken to end the negotiations.

“The window of opportunity is closing. We call on all sides to make the decisions necessary to close this deal now, and on Russia not to add extraneous conditions to its conclusion,” Britain, France and Germany said in a joint statement to the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s 35-nation Board of Governors.

Iran has sought to remove all sanctions and it wants guarantees from the United States that it will not abandon the agreement once more, after then-U.S. President Donald Trump walked out of the deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions.

Diplomats have said until now that several differences still needed to be overcome in the talks, including the extent to which sanctions on Iran, notably its elite revolutionary guards, would be rolled back and what guarantees Washington would give if it were to again renege on the deal.

Two Western officials said there was now a final text on the table and those issues had been resolved.

While they couldn’t rule out further last-minute surprises, they said the last big open question was whether Russia‘s demands were manageably narrow and limited to nuclear cooperation spelled out in the agreement, as Moscow’s envoy to the talks has told other parties, or much broader, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has described them.

“We are very close to an agreement. It is essential we conclude while we still can,” France’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre told reporters in a daily briefing. Read full story

“We are concerned by the risks that further delays could weigh on the possibility of concluding,” she said.

COMMON INTEREST

Moscow threw the potential wrench in the works on Saturday, just as months of indirect talks between Tehran and Washington in Vienna appeared to be headed for an agreement, with Lavrov saying the Western sanctions over Ukraine had become a stumbling block for the nuclear deal.

The EU’s Mora and Russia‘s top negotiator Mikhail Ulyanov held talks in Vienna on Tuesday evening, exchanging views on the “current developments and way ahead,” Moscow’s envoy said on Twitter.

Western officials say there is common interest in avoiding a nuclear nonproliferation crisis, and they are trying to ascertain whether what Russia is demanding regards only its commitments to the Iran deal. That would be manageable, but anything beyond that would be problematic, they say.

The new agreement would lead to Russia taking in excess highly enriched uranium that would be taken out of Iran to bring Tehran back into compliance with the original deal‘s caps on the purity and amount of the enriched uranium it is stockpiling.

Rosatom, a state-run company formed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2007, is key to that and has still not been added to Western sanctions.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken played down the issue during a visit to Estonia on Tuesday and said Russia and the United States still shared a desire to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Read full story

European negotiators from France, Britain, and Germany had already temporarily left the talks as they believed they had gone as far as they could go and it was now up to the two main protagonists to agree on outstanding issues. – Reuters

NEW YORK – McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and Starbucks stopped sales of their best-known products in Russia on Tuesday, offering a united rebuke of the war on Ukraine by companies that define America for much of the world.

Pepsi and McDonald’s were corporate pioneers whose work with the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet Russian state decades ago were seen as improving international relations.

All four companies have major operations in Russia.

McDonald’s said it would go on paying salaries to its 62,000 employees in Russia as it closed 847 restaurants. The first location to open in Russia, in central Moscow’s Pushkin Square in 1990, became a symbol of flourishing American capitalism as the Soviet Union fell. Read full story

“I’m glad they came around and made the right decision,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management who is tracking major companies’ stances on Russia, said after the move by McDonald’s. “It’s a really important impact, and it’s symbolic as much as it is substantive.”

Starbucks Corp SBUX.O is temporarily closing hundreds of stores. PepsiCo Inc PEP.O will suspend all advertising in Russia and stop the sale of its drinks brands, while continuing to sell essentials such as milk and baby food. Rival Coca-Cola Co KO.N said it will suspend its business there. Read full story

Coca-Cola was the official drink of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, despite the United States boycotting the event in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Scores of other companies also have rebuked Russia, and Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O said on Tuesday it would stop accepting new customers for its cloud services in Russia and Ukraine. Universal Music suspended all operations in Russia, and online dating service Bumble Inc will remove its apps from stores in Russia and Belarus.

Earlier, Royal Dutch Shell Plc RDSa.L stopped buying oil from Russia and said it would cut links to the country entirely while the United States stepped up its campaign to punish Moscow by banning Russian oil and energy imports.

Moscow has termed the attack a “special military operation” aimed not at occupying territory but at destroying Ukraine’s military capabilities.

The West’s moves to isolate Russia economically for attacking its neighbour have hit hard global commodity and energy markets, sending prices soaring and threatening to derail the nascent recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Read full story

Britain too said it would ban imports of Russian oil but only by gradually phasing them out during 2022 to give businesses time to find alternative sources of supply.

The London Metal Exchange (LME) halted trade in nickel on Tuesday after prices of the metal, a key component in electric vehicle batteries, doubled to more than $100,000 a tonne.

Shell’s decision to abandon Russia comes days after it faced a barrage of criticism for buying Russian oil – a transaction that two weeks ago would have been routine.

“We are acutely aware that our decision last week to purchase a cargo of Russian crude oil to be refined into products like petrol and diesel – despite being made with security of supplies at the forefront of our thinking – was not the right one, and we are sorry,” Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said.

Shell and rivals BP Plc BP.L and Exxon Mobil Corp XOM.N have all announced plans to sell holdings in Russia and exit the country, leaving France’s TotalEnergies TTEF.PA relatively isolated in hanging on to its investments there. Read full story

HYBRID DELAYS

Mining group BHP BHP.AX warned the surge in commodity prices could spill over into already-skyrocketing inflation and potentially affect global growth.

Nickel prices soared when China’s Tsingshan Holding Group, one of the world’s top nickel and stainless steel producers, bought large amounts of nickel to reduce its bets that prices would fall, three sources familiar with the matter said. Read full storyRead full story

Tsingshan and the LME declined to comment.

As well as high-grade nickel, the price of other metals used in car production, from aluminium in bodywork to palladium in catalytic converters, has soared, and industry supply chains have been broken. Read full story

Volkswagen AG VOWG_p.DE said it would stop taking orders for numerous plug-in hybrid models from Wednesday, as supply-chain troubles exacerbated the production delays caused by chip shortages.

The carmaker had already halted production in Russia and has also suspended production at several factories in Germany as it has struggled to obtain components. Read full story

Orders for the plug-in hybrid versions of Volkswagen’s Golf, Tiguan, Passat, Arteon and Touareg models would be halted until further notice and delivery of already-placed orders might not happen this year, the company said. – Reuters