Moscow (awp/afp) – The ruble fell on Friday, reaching its lowest level against the dollar since March 24, 2022, according to official figures from the Central Bank of Russia (BCR), the day after an experimental missile launch Russian against Ukraine.
The Russian currency, very volatile for three years, officially traded at 102.58 rubles against the greenback, according to the rate set by the BCR, above the symbolic threshold of 100, also under the weight of new American sanctions aimed at notably Gazprombank, the financial arm of the gas giant Gazprom.
One euro was exchanged for 107.43 rubles on Friday.
The fall of the ruble comes the day after a Russian launch of a new generation hypersonic missile against Ukraine, following which Vladimir Putin warned Westerners that Russia was “ready for all” scenarios, in a conflict which has took on a “global character”.
A few hours later, the American government announced a series of sanctions targeting around fifty Russian banks, including Gazprombank, the financial arm of the state gas giant, Gazprom, used in particular for energy payments with foreign customers.
These restrictions also target other small or medium-sized establishments that Russia is suspected of using to channel its payments for the equipment and technologies it acquires.
“There is a significant risk that the weakening of the ruble will continue,” Yevgeni Kogan, professor at the prestigious Moscow High School of Economics, warned on Telegram.
Russian banks under sanctions from Washington cannot carry out transactions that have any connection with the American financial system.
“Eventually, new international payment chains will be established,” Mr. Kogan believes, “but until the process is completed, export earnings may temporarily decline, so the ruble is likely to depreciate (further) in the months to come.
The fall of the ruble comes in a very uncertain geopolitical context, a few weeks before Donald Trump's return to the White House, whose positioning vis-à-vis Moscow is difficult to predict at this stage.
We had to go back to the first quarter of 2022, in the very first weeks of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, to see the ruble so weak against the dollar (1 against 120 rubles officially on March 11, 2022) and the euro, when the West had implemented a barrage of sanctions to try to shake up the Russian economy.
Since then, Moscow has done everything to keep the economy afloat, in particular by investing astronomical sums in military orders and redirecting its hydrocarbon exports as much as possible towards the Asian market.
Before the conflict, the dollar was trading at the beginning of 2022 around 1 for 75-80 rubles on average.
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