• Truth & Irony: Consortium News vs Chrystia Freeland and her Nazi grandfather's scheme for Ukraine
• Trudeau's deputy PM participated in protest featuring pro-Nazi banners and flags
• Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland: Ukraine and the Toronto Globe & Mail exposé - Soros is a "close friend"
• A sad state of affairs: The pathocratic Harper government provides neo-nazi military training to Ukraine National Guard
• Revealing their fascist allegiance: US, Canada & Ukraine vote against Russia's anti-Nazism resolution at UN
• Ukraine's defence minister urges military support from Canada, US and Britain - even if it is outside NATO
• Canada has a momumental Ukrainian Nazi problem

• Documents expose US biological experiments on allied soldiers in Ukraine and Georgia
• Pentagon Biological Weapons Program Never Ended: US Bio-labs Around The World

• Russia declares war on the Straussians
• UK gov't pressures its OneWeb satellites to call off Russian rocket launch, Russia says it will oblige highlighting West's sanctions

The business fallout from the war in Ukraine is about to extend to outer space.

OneWeb, a London-based satellite startup striving for global internet connectivity and a key competitor to Elon Musk's StarLink satellite internet constellation, was set to launch a batch of 36 internet satellites Friday as part of its plan for a 648-satellite constellation. But those plans are now in jeopardy as Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, appears set to roadblock the effort.

A Russian-built Soyuz rocket operated by France's Arianespace SA was meant to deliver the satellites into low Earth orbit, launching from Russia-owned Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. OneWeb and Russia inked a multi-year deal for satellite launches, with the company launching its satellites exclusively on Russia's Soyuz rocket.

But Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of Roscosmos and a former Deputy Prime Minister with a flair for inflammatory rhetoric, is refusing to go ahead with what should be a routine launch in response to UK sanctions on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. The agency is requiring that the UK government sell all stakes in OneWeb and that the company guarantees the satellites will not be used for military purposes, according to an ultimatum spelled out on Twitter from Roscosmos' offical account. Roscosmos stressed the demands are "due to the UK's hostile stance towards Russia" on Wednesday. The deadline for requests to be met is 9:30 pm Moscow time Thursday, Rogozin said in an interview with Russia 24.

Rogozin has tweeted flamboyant statements in the past in response to Western sanctions -- namely in 2014 after the Russian annexation of Crimea. "After analyzing the sanctions against our space industry, I suggest to the USA to bring their astronauts to the International Space Station using a trampoline," Rogozin said at the time on Twitter following US sanctions against Russia's space sector.

Why would Rogozin become inflammatory after Russia reuniting with Crimea? CNN seems to intentionally omit that 2014 was the US backed bloody coup in Ukraine, that's in part what Rogozin was responding to.

Despite Rogozin's flamboyant tweets and interviews, the United States and Russia have historically cooperated in space. While tensions on Earth have led to threats of premature exit, Rogozin has promised Russia will remain NASA's partner at the International Space Station at least until the station is eventually retired.

British lawmakers shown no sign of bending to Roscomos and submitting to demands.

Note that Rogozin's is responding to the West's actions, this isn't just Russia concocting demands on a whim.

"There's no negotiation on OneWeb: the UK Government is not selling its share," tweeted Kwasi Kwerteng, UK Business and Energy Secretary on Wednesday. "We are in touch with other shareholders to discuss next steps..." OneWeb did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment.

Russia's key state bank has revealed that it will pull out of the European Union's financial markets, citing threats to the safety of employees and its branches in the wake of Moscow's attack on Ukraine. Sberbank announced that the decision had been made as a result of its subsidiary banks facing "an abnormal outflow of funds."

"Due to the instruction of Russia's Central Bank, Sberbank [Russia] will not be able to supply liquidity to its European subsidiaries."

However, it offered reassurances that its subsidiary banks had "a high level of capital and quality of assets," and that customer deposits were "insured in line with local legislation." Sberbank had been operational in a number of EU member states, including Germany, Austria, Croatia, and Hungary, and boasted European assets worth €13bn (over $14.4bn) at the end of 2020.

Brussels revealed on Wednesday that the EU had disconnected embargoed Russian banks from the global payment network SWIFT. A number of major lenders, including VTB and Rossiya, are subject to the cut-off.
-
DHL is the latest international logistic giant to stop deliveries to Russia and Belarus, the company confirmed on Wednesday. FedEx and UPS announced suspensions of service earlier this week. Germany's DHL, in an alert published on its website, said:

"Our inbound services to Russia and Belarus have been suspended, which is why we are also not accepting shipments to those countries until further notice."

DHL's offices and operations in Ukraine have also been closed until further notice.

US-based UPS announced a temporary suspension of all international shipping services to and from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine on Monday, saying that packages already in transit will be returned to senders free of charge.

FedEx however is continuing exports from Russia with the exception of time-critical shipments, a notice on its website says, though deliveries to Russia have also been put on halt until further notice. The US-based company suspended all shipping to and from Ukraine last week.
-
The war in Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions against Russia could harm Europe's energy supplies and stall its economic growth, European Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni warned on Wednesday. Europe may encounter problems in the supply of energy resources - more precisely, the supply of Russian gas - and needs to be ready for such an outcome. He said:

"Russia's invasion of Ukraine will likely impact growth negatively, including through repercussions on financial markets, further energy price pressures, more persistent supply chain bottlenecks, and confidence effects that we should not under-evaluate."

EU's statistical office, Eurostat, reported on Wednesday that inflation within the bloc had soared to a new high of 5.8% in February.
-
European natural gas prices spiked above $2,200 per 1,000 cubic meters on Wednesday for the first time in market history. The escalating crisis between Russia and Ukraine has raised fears of supply shortages.

The April futures at the TTF hub in the Netherlands soared from around $1,500 to $2,226 per 1,000 cubic meters, or $213 per megawatt-hour in household terms by 09:30 GMT, hitting an all-time high, data from the London ICE exchange shows.

A huge increase in applications is raising the price by the minute, Kaushal Ramesh, senior analyst at Rystad Energy, told Vesti. He said it had also been affected by fears of supply outages due to possible damage to infrastructure in Ukraine, through which the majority of Russian gas is delivered to Europe, and the possibility of supply restrictions on Russian oil and gas.

Mexico won't be taking part in the international pile-on to sanction Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, as President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said he seeks to keep his country on peaceful terms with all nations. He told reporters on Tuesday:

"We are not going to take any sort of economic retaliation because we want to maintain good relations with all the governments of the world." He added that remaining neutral will put Mexico in a position to "talk with the parties in conflict."

The Mexican leader's position on the Ukraine crisis marks a novel diplomatic strategy as other nations around the world - including former Warsaw Pact nations such as Bulgaria and Romania - join the US in trying to punish Russia. Choosing neutrality could strain Mexico's close relationship with Washington, but Lopez Obrador has been critical of US foreign policy.

Even as it tries to avoid alienating its dominant trading partner, the US, Mexico also aims to maintain economic ties with Russia and Moscow's Latin American allies. Russia's Lukoil this year bought into an offshore oil project in Mexico, and Lopez Obrador said on Monday that his country will keep its airspace open for Aeroflot's flights to Mexico City.

Mexican Tourism Minister Miguel Torruco was widely criticized this week for posting a Twitter message offering "warm greetings" to Aeroflot and noting that "tourism is synonymous with peace, friendship and understanding between peoples." He added that Russian tourist visits to Mexico more than doubled last year to over 75,000.

Lopez Obrador criticized censorship of Russian media outlets, including RT, by governments and social media companies.

"I don't agree with the fact that media from Russia or any country is censored."