The Russian ruble fell Thursday to its lowest level in a year as Moscow’s weakening oil revenues and fears over capital flight weigh on the currency, the Wall Street Journal reported. The ruble was recently down 1.7% against the U.S. dollar and was on track for its lowest closing level since April 21, 2022, with 81.6 rubles buying $1. The currency has fallen 4.4% this week against the dollar and 5.2% against the euro. The ruble’s weakness runs counter to a broader trend among global currencies, which have gained against the dollar in recent weeks.
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The opening months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year drove an increase in oil and natural-gas prices that brought a windfall for Moscow. Those days are over, the Wall Street Journal reported. As the war continues into its second year and Western sanctions bite harder, Russia’s government revenue is being squeezed and its economy has shifted to a lower-growth trajectory, likely for the long term. The country’s biggest exports, gas and oil, have lost major customers. Government finances are strained. The ruble is down over 20% since November against the dollar.
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Ukraine won a significant boost in its attempt to set aside a $3 billion defaulted bond after the UK Supreme Court ruled that judges need to consider the backdrop of Russia’s campaign of threatening behavior in the run-up to the annexation of Crimea, Bloomberg News reported. Britain’s top court declared that a judge should pore over Russian attempts to strong-arm Ukraine into issuing the bond, giving the green light to a full-blown London trial.
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President Biden and his top officials vowed this week to introduce additional sanctions aimed at impeding Russia’s war efforts against Ukraine. But the administration’s focus is increasingly shifting to the role that China has played in supplying Russia with goods that have both civilian and military uses, the New York Times reported. As one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of products like electronics, drones and vehicle parts, China has proved to be a particularly crucial economic partner for Russia. Beijing has remained officially unaligned in the war.
Financial leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) will meet on Feb. 23 to discuss measures against Russia that will put pressure on it to end the Ukraine war, Japan's Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Japan will chair the meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors from the G7 nations in the Indian city of Bengaluru. The meeting will come almost a year since Russia invaded Ukraine, calling it a "special military operation". The war has raged on despite a slew of punitive measures G7 and other countries have taken against Russia.
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Russia’s economy contracted 2.1% last year, defying the worst fears of a major recession as surging commodity exports helped offset the impact of US and European sanctions imposed over President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported. The preliminary result was better than the 3% decline officials expected as recently as the early fall and far short of the 10% drop some forecasters saw when the sanctions first hit just over a year ago.
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A Russian scheme to grant loan payment holidays to troops fighting in Ukraine, and for banks to write off the entire debt if they are killed or maimed, has added to growing pressure for the remaining overseas lenders in Russia to leave, Reuters reported. Almost a year since Moscow launched what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine, a handful of European banks, including Austria's Raiffeisen Bank International and Italy's UniCredit, are still making money in Russia.
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The European Union is floating a plan to cap the price of Russian diesel at $100 a barrel — a level that might help to stave off the very worst effects of a fuel-imports ban that the bloc will impose on Moscow in just 10 days’ time, Bloomberg News reported. The EU’s executive arm is considering cap levels after the Group of Seven nations offered a price range based in part on the existing cap on Russian crude oil. The thresholds are expected to apply from Feb. 5, the same date as the EU will ban almost all imports of refined Russian products as punishment for the nation’s invasion of Ukraine.
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U.S. authorities designated cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato Ltd. as a primary money-laundering concern and charged its founder for allegedly facilitating money laundering for criminals, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Treasury Department designated Bitzlato under a section of the USA Patriot Act, a law used to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, for allegedly laundering illicit funds for ransomware actors based in Russia. This type of action, a rarely used so-called death-knell sanction that cuts off the entity from the U.S.
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The Russian rouble pared losses to gain on Thursday after slumping to an eight-month low against the dollar in early trade, struggling under the weight of expectations that sanctions on Russian oil and gas may limit export revenues, Reuters reported. Despite recovering ground in another volatile session, the rouble has still lost more than 13% to the dollar since a Western price cap on Russian oil exports came into force on Dec. 5. By 0957 GMT, the rouble was 0.8% stronger against the dollar at 71.64 , having earlier touched 72.9175, its weakest since April 27.
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