Series on the Russia-Ukraine Crisis:

Russia and Ukraine on Thursday agreed on the need for humanitarian corridors to help civilians escape Moscow's eight-day invasion, the first clear progress in the talks, as the United States  in addition to Western sanctions on more oligarchs.

 Thousands of people are believed to have died or been injured in the biggest attack on a European country since the outbreak of World War Two, creating 1 million refugees, affecting the Russian economy and worrying  concerns about broader conflict in the West for decades.

 Russian forces continue to besiege and attack Ukrainian cities, including Mariupol, the main eastern port that is under heavy shelling, without electricity or water.  Officials said they were unable to evacuate the injured.

 After talks at an undisclosed location, Russia said "significant progress" had been made, but not the outcome Kyiv had hoped for.

 The two sides agreed to conduct a third round of negotiations.

Prediction on Gold on 03/03/2022:

- In yesterday's session, precious metal Gold fell from 1947 to 1914 ($33), closing the day session with a bearish candle around 1927. The drop was not too strong and recovered in  end of trading day.  In my personal opinion, the increasing force of Gold is still dominant, so in today's session, the option will be to buy.

 - On the H4 time frame, the nearest support area for this precious metal is around 1914-1919.  Here we can establish a long position with a safe target around 1935-1940.  Then there is a signal I will update later.

Russian rouble falls to record lows after ratings downgrades

The Russian rouble slid further on Thursday, hitting record lows against the dollar and euro, after ratings agencies Fitch and Moody's (NYSE:MCO) downgraded Russia's sovereign debt to "junk" status citing the impact of Western sanctions.

At 0830 GMT, the rouble was more than 10% weaker against the dollar at 117.5 and had lost over 7% against the euro to trade at 124.1 on the Moscow Exchange, marking the first time the rouble has traded above 110 to the dollar in Moscow.

The Russian central bank imposed a 30% commission on foreign currency purchases by individuals on currency exchanges - a move brokers said appeared designed to curb demand for dollars - but that did little to halt the rouble's slide.

Russia's financial markets have been thrown into turmoil by sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine, the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a "special operation" that it says is not designed to occupy territory but to destroy its southern neighbour's military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists.

Since Russian troops entered Ukraine on Feb. 24 the rouble is down close to 30% against the dollar, and analysts said on Thursday it would probably remain highly volatile. The government has ordered Russian exporters to convert 80% of their forex revenues into roubles to support the local currency, but people are still queuing up at banks to buy dollars as the rouble slumps.

Trading on the Moscow Exchange's stock section remained largely closed on Thursday, a fourth day of restrictions ordered by the central bank.

Overnight, Fitch said that U.S. and European Union sanctions prohibiting any transactions with the Bank of Russia would have a "much larger impact on Russia's credit fundamentals than any previous sanctions". Moody's said the severity of the sanctions "have gone beyond Moody's initial expectations and will have material credit implications".

S&P lowered Russia's rating to sub-investment grade last week.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions imposed in response have led to dire warnings about the Russian economy, with the Institute of International Finance predicting a double-digit contraction in growth this year.

On Wednesday, index providers FTSE Russell and MSCI said they would remove Russian equities from all their indexes, after a top MSCI executive earlier this week called Russia's stock market "uninvestable".

📕Analysis on Gold on March 1, 2022:

- In yesterday's trading session, after the precious metal GAP rose to 1930, there were signs of decreasing and filling the GAP. Yesterday's closing session was around 1908. Although it ended the day with a bearish candle, it was a retreat candle and one more thing was that yesterday's Russia-Ukrainian negotiations were basically unsuccessful. As expected, there needs to be further negotiation so Gold still has many factors to boost the uptrend. - Moving to the H4 time frame, we can see that the price area around 1896-1900 is still the closest support area for precious metal Gold. Here we can establish a long position with a safe target around 1914 and expect 1920 in today's session.