How well did you keep up with the news this week? Take our quiz.

Russia subjected the Ukrainian port of Mariupol and the cities of Chernihiv and Kharkiv to relentless missile bombardment yesterday as civilians bear the brunt of a war that Vladimir Putin has declared will be won “whatever happens”.

The indiscriminate and brutal attacks on residential areas came as Russian forces tightened their grip on the south-east of Ukraine. Moscow claims to have taken control of the Black Sea city of Kherson, but Russian troops have shown little interest in running the towns under their control.

At least 22 people were killed in a strike on Chernihiv, north of Kyiv, with Russian cluster munitions hitting a residential area. As rockets rained down, Putin held a moment of silence for Russian casualties and blamed civilian casualties on “neo-Nazis” that he claimed were using people as “human shields”.

Russia admitted this week that 498 of its soldiers had been killed and more than 1,500 wounded. Ukraine claims that Russia has suffered more than 5,500 casualties.

After a second round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations on Thursday, both sides agreed to set up civilian evacuation routes out of cities hard-hit by the war.

The invasion has created a fast-growing refugee crisis of a scale not seen on the European continent since the fall of Nazi Germany. The UN estimates that more than 1mn people have fled Ukraine.

• Explainer: Will the west place an embargo on Russian oil and gas supplies? For its part, the White House has rejected bipartisan calls to ban Russian oil imports.

• Markets: Global commodity prices are on track for their biggest weekly rally in more than five decades as the war in Ukraine triggers “exceptional moves” in raw materials from oil to wheat.

• Business: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has suspended all current and pending business relating to Russia and Belarus. The corporate retreat from Russia marks the end of an erasays a Russian history professor.

• Aviation: Japan’s two largest airlines have cancelled flights to Europe because of worries about flying over Russian airspace.

• Sanctions: The Biden administration hit several Russian oligarchs and government officials with fresh sanctions, as France and Germany detain superyachts belonging to Putin’s close associates.

• Crypto: Ukraine plans to become the first developed country to issue its own collection of non-fungible tokensas it looks to capitalise on crypto donations.

• How to help: How to Spend It rounds up five charities providing aid to Ukraine — and the fundraisers supporting them.

Track troop movements on our regularly updated map of the conflict and follow our live blog for the latest developments.

Sign up to receive my colleague Valentina Pop’s essential newsletter, Europe Express, for the latest analysis and reaction. Thanks for reading FirstFT Asia. Here is the rest of the day’s news — Emily

Five more stories in the news

1. Ex-Nissan legal chief given suspended sentence Greg Kelly, Nissan’s former legal head accused of conspiring to conceal the extent of Carlos Ghosn’s pay, is set to walk free after he was found guilty but was handed a suspended prison sentence yesterday.

2. Purdue and US states agree new settlement for opioid litigation Members of the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma have agreed to increase their financial contribution to a settlement with US states over their role in the opioid crisis to $6bn.

3. Trump ‘engaged in a criminal conspiracy’ The former president and his allies may have “engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the US” in their attempt to block the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory, the congressional committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol building has concluded.

4. Ex-Goldman partner’s credibility questioned in 1MDB trial Tim Leissner, the government’s star witness in the 1MDB trial, came under scrutiny during the criminal trial of an ex-colleague charged in connection with the affair. Lawyers for defendant Roger Ng sought to focus on discrepancies between answers that Leissner gave to prosecutors and statements he had previously made to the FBI.

5. Turkish inflation pushes past 54% Turkish prices rose at their fastest rate in 20 years as a currency devaluation fed inflation. Food prices climbed 64.5 per cent last month and transportation jumped 75.8 per cent, pushing the consumer price index to its highest level since March 2002.

The day ahead

2022 Paralympic Winter Games The Games will kick off in Beijing, where Russian and Belarusian athletes have been banned from competition by the International Paralympic Committee. Multiple national paralympic committees were “threatening not to compete” if the nations were included in the Games following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russian stocks removed from FTSE Russell equity indices Following the London Stock Exchange’s decision to suspended trading in 27 companies with strong ties to Russia, LSE’s index business, FTSE Russell, will delete Russian stocks from all of its equity indices from Friday evening.

China’s National People’s Congress The annual plenary session is set to begin on Saturday. The Chinese political system is about to enter a crucial few months where President Xi Jinping is widely expected to extend his period in office into an unprecedented third term.

What else we’re reading

South Korea’s raucous politics The presidential election winner will take the helm of the world’s 10th-largest economy and a manufacturing powerhouse in East Asia. But he will also inherit an unhappy balancing act between the US and China and an unresolved conflict with North Korea.

‘Greedy work has been made less greedy’ In the latest part of our series “Economists Exchange”, Sarah O’Connor speaks to Claudia Goldin, an economics professor at Harvard University, over whether Covid-19 might make top jobs more compatible with family life.

Cathie Wood didn’t come this far to quit A year ago, the founder of Ark Invest managed more than $60bn in assets. Now she faces the toughest battle of her career as she fights against market momentum and tries to halt huge losses and outflows.

Hip-hop stars miss out in music catalogue gold rush Over the past few years, you might have noticed headlines about musicians selling their life’s work for eye-popping sums of money. But rappers, despite being the backbone of the music streaming revolution, are losing out to boomer rock musicians, writes Anna Nicolaou.

Books

How did London and the US became safe havens for “dirty money”? These three books examine how and why financial centres in Britain and the US responded to the challenges of the postwar world by assuming the role of “butlers” for autocrats.