later damped hopes of Moscow seeking a diplomatic route out of the Ukraine crisis, warning that Russia’s military was still ramping up plans to invade its neighbour.US stock-index futures also gained on Tuesday after the statement from Russia’s defence ministry. Futures contracts tracking the S&P 500 gauge added 1 per cent while those tracking the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 rose 1.4 per cent.
Brent crude, the oil benchmark, fell 1.6 per cent to $94.97 a barrel after rallying as high as $96.78 on Monday, its strongest level in seven years. Haven assets also fell in price, with the dollar index down 0.3 per cent. The yield on Germany’s 10-year bund, which moves inversely to the price of the security, rose 0.03 percentage points to just over 0.3 per cent.
“The Russia-Ukraine situation is coming at an inopportune time when markets were already fragile,” said