Portrait of the week: Russia bombs Ukraine, MPs get a pay rise and Tube staff strike

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Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia: ‘Never in all my study or memory of politics and international affairs have I seen so clear a distinction between right and wrong, between good and evil, between light and dark.’ He was speaking during a visit to the Ukrainian Catholic cathedral in London, where he lit a candle. He flew off to visit Poland and Estonia, and said he was worried that Vladimir Putin might ‘Grozny-fy’ Kiev, which would be ‘an unalterable moral humanitarian catastrophe’. Britain might take in 200,000 Ukrainian refugees after a scheme for close relatives of Ukrainians in the UK was widened to include other family members. Asked if she supported British citizens who might join an international legion defending Ukraine, Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, said: ‘Absolutely, if people want to support that struggle I would support them.’ She did not mention the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870, which Dominic Grieve, a former attorney general, said forbade such action.

Bernard Looney, BP’s chief executive, resigned from the board of Rosneft, the Russian energy company, in which BP set about getting rid of a 19.75 per cent share. Shell was to leave its joint ventures with the Russian state energy firm Gazprom. Average UK petrol prices rose above £1.51. A new law banned ships with any Russian connection from entering British ports. Britain joined the EU, United States and Canada in cutting some Russian banks off from the Swift international payments system. Roman Abramovich handed day-to-day stewardship of Chelsea football club to the trustees of its charitable foundation.

In the seven days to the beginning of this week, 703 people had died with coronavirus, bringing total deaths (within 28 days of testing positive) to 161,224.