“Goodbye laundry?” – News online

The Russian ruble hit its lowest level since March 24, 2022 on Friday, according to official data from the Russian Central Bank, a day after the experimental launch of a hypersonic missile over Ukraine.

The official exchange rate of the Russian Central Bank was 102.58 rubles to the dollar, i.e. above the symbolic threshold of 100.

The drop in the value of the ruble is also influenced by the new US sanctions aimed at Gazprombank, the financial arm of the gas giant Gazprom. On Friday, the euro was exchanged for 107.43 rubles.

The drop in the ruble was recorded a day after Russia fired a new-generation hypersonic missile at Ukraine, after which Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was “ready for all” scenarios in a conflict that gained “world features.”

A few hours later, the US government announced the introduction of a series of sanctions aimed at fifty Russian banks, including Gazprombank, the financial branch of the state-owned gas giant Gazprom, which is used for energy payments to foreign clients.

The restrictions are also aimed at other small or medium-sized establishments that Russia is suspected of using to transfer its payments for the equipment and technology it acquires.

“There is a big risk that the weakening of the ruble will continue,” Yevgeny Kogan, a professor at the prestigious Higher School of Economics in Moscow, warned via Telegram.

Russian banks under the sanctions of Washington cannot carry out transactions that have any connection with the American financial system.

Kogan estimated that eventually new international payment chains will be established, but until that process is established, export revenues could be temporarily reduced, so it is possible that the ruble will fall further in the coming months.

The decline in the value of the ruble occurs in a very uncertain geopolitical context, a few weeks after Donald Trump’s return to the White House, as it is difficult to predict his attitude towards Moscow at this stage.

The ruble was this low in the first quarter of 2022 at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 120 rubles were exchanged for the dollar officially on March 11, 2022. Then the West introduced a series of sanctions in an effort to weaken the Russian economy. Since then, Moscow has done everything to maintain the economy, investing, among other things, astronomical sums in military orders and redirecting its energy exports as much as possible to the Asian market.

Before the conflict in early 2022, one dollar was exchanged for 75 to 89 rubles on average.