european stocks tumbled tuesday in step with a global selloff as ukrainerussia tensions ratcheted up driving up energy prices and the stocks of related companies such as shell and bp hopes for a diplomatic solution were fading and fears of a ukraine invasion rising after russian president vladimir putin on monday ordered troops into separatist regions of that country and said he would recognize their independence the stoxx europe 600 sxxp fell 14 to 44838 after those geopolitical tensions knocked 13 off the index monday us stock futures es00 ym00 nq00 were also under sharp selling pressure while russia’s moex stock index was last down 5 the ruble usdrub was trading at a low not seen since early 2020 beyond 80 per dollar hurting even worse was the german dax dax  down nearly 2 due to the country’s heavy dependence on russian gas the french cac 40 px1 was off 14 and the ftse 100 ukx fell close to 1 read what a russian invasion of ukraine would mean for markets as putin orders troops to separatist regions european naturalgas prices based on the dutch benchmark title transfer facility ttf surged 8 with the worst of the winter months nearly over president ursula von der leyen said over the weekend that europe can get by in case of “full disruption” from gazprom still higher prices will add more pressure on already elevated inflation around the world “in normal times central banks would tend to look through an energyled rise in inflation but given the current high rates of inflation and corresponding concerns about it feeding higher inflation expectations it’s possible that this adds to the list of reasons for policy makers to raise interest rates” said neil shearing group chief economist at capital economics in a note to clients fears of geopoliticallydriven supply disruptions drove us cl00 and brent crude futures brn00 5 and nearly 4 higher respectively among a handful of gainers in europe tuesday shares of energy giants shell shel shel and bp bp bp were up around 1 each banks and pharmaceutical companies were among the biggest decliners shares of hsbc hsbc hsba fell 1 after the banking giant said fourthquarter profit more than tripled from a year earlier but warned of lingering risks from china’s troubled realestate sector shearing said losses seen by global equity markets this year have largely been due to fears over hawkish central banks meaning threat of a conflict in eastern europe may not be priced in it could end up erasing europe’s slim outperformance over the us so far this year