Rio Tinto on Thursday became the first major mining company to announce it was cutting all ties with Russian businesses, joining a raft of leading Western companies in a pullout following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The global miner has previously said it has no operational assets or employees to pull out of Russia, or Ukraine, but the move comes as Western firms come under increasing pressure to exit Russia since the invasion began on Feb. 24. Leading U.S. companies like McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks stopped trading with Russia this week. Moscow describes its actions there as a “special operation”. “Rio Tinto is in the process of terminating all commercial relationships it has with any Russian business,” a Rio spokesman said in a message sent to Reuters. It wasn’t immediately clear with which companies Rio has done business in Russia. The announcement from the Anglo-Australian firm comes after a top …