Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:
Buses of people exhausted by war departed Sumy in northeastern Ukraine on Tuesday, but their hard-won evacuation did little to lift spirits in a country where many remain held captive by Russian forces – including a six-year-old child whose reported death in a city under siege brought a fresh shudder of horror.
At least two convoys were able to leave Sumy. Civilians also continued to leave Irpin, the city on the western outskirts of Kyiv where a family was killed earlier as it fled to safety.
But Ukrainian authorities said ceasefire violations once again marred an attempt to evacuate Mariupol, the city on the Sea of Azov that has been surrounded by Russian troops. It has now gone without electricity and water for a week. Roughly 300,000 people remain in Mariupol, a city in such desperation that some have been reduced to drinking melted snow and authorities say they have been unable to count casualties.
In Rava-Ruska, a frontier town between Ukraine and Poland, Globe and Mail correspondent Mark MacKinnon saw a mother and her young son smile and wave farewell as the yellow school bus transporting them passed under the last Ukrainian flag before the border.
Yana Vorobyova and two-year-old Nikita, who is suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia, were in an emergency convoy carrying children with cancer who had been trapped until now in a hospital basement in the besieged Ukrainian city of Chernihiv.
In one of the most complicated evacuations likely managed from a war zone, 73 Ukrainian children suffering from cancer were rescued from besieged cities around the country and driven across the border into Poland on Tuesday.
More Ukraine-related news and analysis from The Globe’s journalists:
Adrian Morrow and Jeffrey Jones report that U.S. President Joe Biden announced a ban on imports of Russian oil and gas to punish President Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine, a week after Canada imposed a similar ban and amid mounting congressional pressure on Biden to act.
Russia supplied only about eight per cent of the U.S.’s petroleum imports last year – an average of 200,000 barrels a day of crude oil and 500,000 of refined products – but the U.S. President was reluctant to enact a ban for fear of pushing gas prices higher for American consumers.
Business columnist Eric Reguly outlines the unintended consequences of the U.S. ban. Russia will turn east and sell to China. That market switch is already under way. Beijing probably has already concluded that the war in Ukraine might do more good than harm to the Chinese economy.
Covering Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit to Latvia, Globe correspondent Marieke Walsh reports that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned Russia Tuesday that an attack on any of the alliance’s 30 members would “trigger the response from the whole alliance.”
Transportation reporter Eric Atkins explains why the Russian steel magnate Alexei Mordashov’s ties to the Kremlin and businesses that support the war against Ukraine could complicate WestJet’s takeover bid of Sunwing.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Leslyn Lewis announces bid to lead federal Conservatives
Ontario MP Leslyn Lewis has become the second candidate to enter the race to lead the federal Conservatives, launching her campaign with a Twitter post on Tuesday. The results are expected to be known by Sept. 10.
Ottawa-area MP Pierre Poilievre entered the leadership race on Feb. 5, declaring he was running for prime minister to give supporters control of their lives. Lewis placed third in the 2020 leadership race after a campaign that advanced social-conservative themes.
Rogers locks in financing for proposed Shaw takeover, selling more than $13-billion of bonds
The money, along with new term loans from banks, will replace a $19-billion bridge loan from Bank of America Corp. that Rogers struck to last March, when the company announced plans to acquire Calgary-based Shaw.
The acquisition needs to be approved by the federal Liberal government and is worth $26-billion, including $6-billion of Shaw debt that Rogers will assume. The two companies have consistently said the transaction will close by the end of June.
Winnipeg zoo giving COVID-19 vaccine to 55 animals including tigers and snow leopards
The Assiniboine Park Zoo says it has begun using a vaccine made uniquely for animals to protect them against the novel coronavirus.
Chris Enright, the zoo’s director of veterinary services, says vaccination is a common and safe way of protecting animals in human care from a variety of illnesses.
MARKET WATCH
North American markets closed lower today, as investors weighed fast-paced developments regarding the crisis in Ukraine as the United States banned Russian oil and other energy imports over the invasion.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 184.74 points or 0.56 per cent to 32,632.64, the S&P 500 lost 30.39 points or 0.72 per cent to end at 4,170.70, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 35.41 points or 0.28 per cent to 12,795.55.
The S&P/TSX Composite index slid 72.37 points or 0.34 per cent to 21,232.03. The loonie was trading at 77.72 U.S. cents.
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TALKING POINTS
Robyn Urback: “Russian citizens are watching their country morph into a pariah on the world stage – becoming evermore isolated economically, physically and socially – and it will be those ordinary people who will bear the brunt of the suffering caused by sanctions. The question is whether they will turn their ire inward at a regime that launched the war ... or whether these sanctions will only fuel the perception that the greatest threat to Russian stability really is the West.”
Katharine Smart: “Seeing women in medicine is no longer new or unusual. We now dominate medical school enrolment and many areas of practice. And while too few of us are in medical leadership roles, this is changing too. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the future of medicine looks predominantly female.
“It’s time that our medical culture caught up.”
LIVING BETTER
Gluten-free ways to boost your fibre intake
Whole grains, such as wheat, rye and barley, are excellent sources of fibre but they contain gluten. A gluten-free diet is a necessity for people with celiac disease, a lifelong genetically-based disorder that occurs when gluten triggers the body’s immune system to attack and damage the lining of the small intestine. Removing gluten, though, doesn’t have to lead to a deficit of beneficial fibre.
TODAY’S LONG READ
Putin’s siege of Grozny in 2000 gives Ukraine a dark foreshadowing of Kyiv’s future
The siege of the Chechen capital of Grozny saw a horrific four-month bombardment that nearly obliterated the city, killing thousands of people in indiscriminate shelling in the winter of 1999-2000. The Russian military fired massive barrages at the city, using long-range heavy artillery, tanks, multiple-rocket launchers, warplanes, cluster bombs and even ballistic missiles.
Geoffrey York was The Globe and Mail’s bureau chief in Moscow from 1994 to 2002 and he spent weeks in Grozny during the two Chechen wars.
He explains how, with mounting fears of urban warfare as Russian forces advance toward the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, analysts are beginning to draw lessons from Vladimir Putin’s brutal tactics in his first siege of a European city: Grozny.
Evening Update is compiled by Tu Thanh Ha. If you’d like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday evening, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.
Tu Thanh Ha