Fitch's parent company announced on Monday that it has chosen to cease its commercial operations in Russia, which include credit ratings and other services, with immediate effect.
Fitch Group said it will continue to give independent analytical perspectives to the market through ratings coverage outside of Russia.
Sanctions placed against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, the biggest attack on a European state since World War II, have thrown its financial system into disarray.
The invasion triggered a wave of credit rating downgrades and dire predictions about Russia's economic consequences. On Friday, S&P lowered Russia's credit rating to "junk."
It also prompted index creators FTSE Russell and MSCI to announce on Wednesday that Russian stocks will be excluded from all of their indexes, after a top MSCI executive earlier this week's assessment of Russia's stock market as "uninvestable."
Moody's stated on Saturday that the suspension applies to Moody's Investors Service and Moody's Analytics.
For existing ratings from outside Russia, Moody's Investors Service will continue to provide analytical coverage.
Visa and Mastercard said on Saturday that their Russian operations will be suspended.
Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, several businesses have stopped doing business with the country.
Apple Inc. has halted sales of iPhones and other products in Russia, and FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. have halted shipments to the country.
Meanwhile, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, cyberattacks on corporations and government organizations have escalated, with the potential of spillover cyberattacks against non-primary targets becoming far more frequent.
As per Fitch Ratings, there is a higher risk for issuers doing business in these nations or with their governments, as well as businesses or countries that apply sanctions or are believed to intervene.
Critical infrastructure, such as financial institutions, governments, and utilities, could be targeted.
The NotPetya cyberattack in 2017 is an example of a cyberattack that highlights the possibility of spillover to companies outside of Ukraine.
The attack was aimed at the Ukrainian government and financial institutions at first, but it eventually spread to computer systems all around the world, causing billions of dollars in losses.
Fitch and Moody's claimed Western sanctions are posing concerns about Russia's ability to service debt and weakening the economy.
The current battle is exacerbating a broader trend of attacks growing in volume, size, and complexity, posing major financial, reputational, and legal risks to issuers.
