(Moscow) Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday blasted the brutal sanctions imposed by the Western “empire of lies” in response to the invasion of Ukraine and announced drastic measures to support the ruble, in full tumble.
Posted at 9:36
Updated at 12:07 p.m.
Residents of Russia will no longer be able to transfer currency abroad, the Kremlin announced in a decree late Monday, after the Russian currency earlier hit all-time lows against the dollar and euro. .
In addition, Russian exporters are also ordered on Monday to convert 80% of their foreign currency earnings into rubles since 1er January and continue to maintain a ratio of 80% of their monetary holdings in rubles in the future.
The Russian currency collapsed from the start of trading on Monday before regaining some ground in the afternoon. It closed the session at 94.6 rubles to the dollar against 83.5 at the previous official rate on Wednesday.
The euro was worth 106 rubles at the close, against 93.5 on the eve of the invasion. A ceiling has been set at regular intervals to stop trading and thus slow down the fall of the Russian currency.
To defend the economy and the currency, the Central Bank of Russia more than doubled its key rate, from 9.5 to 20% on Monday morning. The Moscow Stock Exchange, meanwhile, has not even opened, facing the risk of collapse.
Among other sanctions, the United States, the European Union and other countries have excluded the largest Russian banks from the Swift international banking payment system and banned all transactions with the Central Bank of Russia.
Commercial retaliatory measures were also announced, with the whole of Europe closing to Russian aircraft, largely cutting off Russia’s air links with Western countries.
Russian television broadcast images of a meeting devoted to the response to the sanctions between Mr. Putin, Prime Minister Mikhail Michoustin, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, the CEO of the country’s main bank Sberbank, German Gref, and Central Bank President Elvira Nabioullina.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov previously acknowledged that Western sanctions to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine were “heavy” and “problematic”, but assured that Russia had “the necessary capabilities to compensate for the damage.
Focused on its economic response, the Kremlin has yet to announce any large-scale reprisals.
” The taken procedures […] reduce volatility,” Alexei Vedev, an analyst at the Gaidar Economic Institute, told AFP. “The uncertainty is enormous and the Central Bank is acting with good reason. »
Worried oligarchs
But, rare thing, some Russian oligarchs, these billionaires who made their fortune in the 1990s and submitted by the master of the Kremlin in the 2000s, have publicly expressed their dissatisfaction.
“It’s a real crisis there and we need real crisis managers […] it is absolutely necessary to change economic policy and put an end to all this state capitalism,” wrote on Telegram Oleg Deripaska, the founder of the aluminum giant Rusal, which has been subject to sanctions for years.
He said he was waiting for “clarifications and clear comments on economic policy for the next three months”.
For Sergei Khestanov, an adviser for macroeconomic issues at Open Broker, Russia can still see things coming, however, because its main foreign currency resources, exports of raw materials, are not affected by the sanctions.
“As long as there are no real sanctions on Russian exports, and above all on oil and gas, there will be no disaster”, he says, but “people are of course going to feel” effects.
Some Russians already preferred to withdraw their savings from the banks.
“I knew there would be a lot of people. I want to withdraw cash, keeping it at home is safer, we have no idea what will happen,” said Svetlana Paramonova, 58, a St. Petersburg resident who went to withdraw her savings from her account.