Mosque is shelled in Mariupol as fighting rages across Ukraine

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Cities across Ukraine came under renewed shelling and bombardment as a mosque in the port city of Mariupol, which was sheltering 80 civilians, was shelled by Russian forces, Ukraine's foreign ministry said on Saturday.

"The mosque of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and his wife Roxolana (Hurrem Sultan) in Mariupol was shelled by Russian invaders," the ministry wrote on its Twitter account.

"More than 80 adults and children are hiding there from the shelling, including citizens of Turkey."

Russian forces began slowly surrounding Kyiv on Saturday as fighting raged near the capital city.

The bulk of Russian ground forces took positions about 25 kilometres from the centre of the Ukrainian capital, Britain's defence ministry said. Several other cities were also surrounded and faced heavy shelling.

It was hoped that civilians trapped in Ukrainian cities would be able to escape on Saturday, said Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

She said she hoped that several humanitarian corridors would open for thousands of residents in the bombarded cities, including from the besieged port city of Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia.

"I hope that the day will go well, all the planned routes will be open and Russia will fulfil its obligations to guarantee the ceasefire regime," Ms Vereshchuk said in a video address after repeated evacuation efforts this week failed.

Air raid sirens sounded across most Ukrainian cities on Saturday morning, urging people to seek shelter, local media reported.

The UK defence ministry said on Saturday that fighting north-west of the capital continued and the cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mariupol remained encircled under heavy Russian shelling.

At least 1,582 civilians in the south-eastern city of Mariupol have been killed as a result of Russian shelling and a 12-day blockade, the city council said in an online statement on Friday. It was not possible to verify casualty figures, according to Reuters.

Efforts to isolate Russia economically have intensified, with the US imposing new sanctions on senior Kremlin officials and Russian oligarchs and the EU set to strip Russia of its privileged trade status on Saturday.

A superyacht owned by Russian billionaire Andrey Igorevich Melnichenko was seized by Italian police.

The $578 million Sailing Yacht A – which is the world’s biggest sailing yacht, according to the Italian government – has been sequestered at the northern port of Trieste, the government said.

'Sailing Yacht A', owned by Russian oligarch Andrey Melnichenko, in front of Monaco harbour. The yacht has been siezed by Italian police. Reuters

The seizure was confirmed by the prime minister's office on Saturday, a few days after the businessman was placed on EU sanctions.

Mr Melnichenko is one of many wealthy Russians who have been penalised by Western states for their links to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

With the Russian assault in its third week, Mr Zelenskiyy, who has rallied his people with a series of addresses from the capital Kyiv, said Ukraine had "already reached a strategic turning point".

"It is impossible to say how many days we still have (ahead of us) to free Ukrainian land. But we can say we will do it," he said. "We are already moving towards our goal, our victory."

Russian forces had kept up their bombardment of cities across the country on Friday in the biggest assault on a European country since the Second World War.

The fighting has created more than two million refugees, and thousands of Ukrainians are trapped in besieged cities.

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”