By Gina Lee

Investing.com – The dollar was up on Thursday morning in Asia, with the euro weakening and increased demand for safe-haven currencies as concerns of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine intensify.

By 11:48 ET (03:48 GMT), the index that measures the greenback’s performance against other currencies had risen 0.41%, to 96.580 (3:48 GMT). The greenback rose to 96.372, a record high since February 14, 2022.

It fell by 0.6% to 114.78

Both the pair dropped 0.65% to 0.7186, and fell by 0.72% at 0.6723.

While the pair increased by 0.05%, it fell to 6.3172. The pair dropped by 0.18% at 1.3518.

Russian President announced a special operation to “protect” Ukraine’s Donbass (Donbas) region, according to a TASS report citing a speech. The report said that Putin claimed that Russia doesn’t intend to occupy Ukraine. However, he asked Ukrainian troops to abandon their arms and to return to Russia.

The Ukraine declared a state of emergency and Russia started to evacuate its embassy from the capital of Kyiv. Russia was reacted with sanctions. The West joined Germany by sanctioning Nord Stream 2, the gas pipeline connecting Germany and Russia.

All three currencies rose to multi-week highs in relation to the euro, including the dollar, Japanese yen and Swiss Franc. After U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken stated that he believed Russia would invade Ukraine in hours, the dollar was still close to a one week high.

Risker commodity-linked currencies also fell, reflecting investors’ decreasing risk appetite, losing its resilience from earlier in the week. As much as 0.26 percent fell to $1.12750. This was its lowest point since February 3. Also, it fell 0.29 percent to 129.640yen. It was close to Tuesday’s low of 129.360 yen. The lowest level since February. It also fell 0.22%, to 1.03550 Swiss Francs. Tuesday’s low of 0.033405, the lowest level since Jan. 24, was near.

Joseph Capurso, strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia told Reuters that there was a “kne-jerk reaction” to Blinken comments. There are safe-haven currencies available for purchase and commodities currencies being sold off.

“The situation appears to be getting worse before it gets better.”