US Senator Marco Rubio, Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, tweeted out: “The Russian invasion of Ukraine is now underway.”

“In the hours to come, Russia will

-conduct strikes on air defense systems

-move to cut off Kyiv from eastern Ukraine

-move to cut off Ukraine’s military forces on the line of contact in the east to prevent them

from falling back to defend Kyiv,” Rubio added.

Market reaction

Markets are seeing a fresh wave of risk-off flows on these headlines, with S&P 500 futures now falling 0.67% vs. the drop of 0.44% before the tweet.

AUD/USD is about to breach 0.7200 while Gold is closing in on the June 2021 highs of $1,917.