what it means and how Mosca-Corriere.it will react

The ruble, which has weakened considerably in recent weeks, continues its downward race, with the euro breaking through the psychological threshold of 100 rubles for the first time since March 2022. The European currency has reached 102 rubles, with growth by more than 3% compared to yesterday, while the dollar reached 93.3 rubles with a strengthening of more than 2.5%. The governor of the Russian central bank, Elvira Nabiullina, quoted by the Ria Novosti agency, explained the weakening of the national currency with the sharp reduction in the Russian trade surplus. In this case, it would be an effect of the embargo of Western countries on Russia and of the ceiling placed on the price of Russian oil imposed by the European Union on the price of Russian oil. Russia is in fact forced to sell oil at a 25% discount on Brent and this means that budget revenues are significantly lower than expected. According to some calculations, state revenues have decreased by 47% since the beginning of the year.

Broken balances

In reality, according to many analysts, the fall of the Russian currency is largely attributable to the attempted coup d’état by the head of the Wagner Prigozhin mercenary militia. In the two weeks following the event, the ruble accelerated its descent and exited the range of 80-90 against the dollar which was considered physiological.

Dollar/euro exchange rate: partial recovery at the close

The current sharp drop in the value of the ruble can also be caused by speculative games, but the exchange rate trend does not affect Russia’s economic stability because the macroeconomic indicators are actually better than expected, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov quoted by the Interfax agency. The ruble is going down, but let’s remember that we have seen it several times and there have been some bounces, added Peskov. The ruble also recovered at the close of Thursday 6 June, returning below the 100 level against the euro, down by around 1% to 99.18.