Moscow braces for market meltdown Monday as new sanctions hit
Moscow is bracing for economic panic as markets open on Monday morning, with the value of the rouble expected to plummet after the US and European Union announced unprecedented sanctions over the weekend.
Those measures targeted the Russian central bank, which has intervened to prop up the value of the rouble following Vladimir Putin’s order to invade Ukraine. They also marked the first time Russian banks have been excluded from the Swift international payments system.
Top Russian banks such as Sberbank and VTB Bank have assured their customers that they’ll be able to access their rouble deposits and make exchanges into foreign currencies like dollars and euros.
But the economic turbulence will mark a key moment when the gravity of the crisis in Ukraine hits home for many ordinary Russians.
“It will be something we have not seen before,” said Sergei Guriev, economics professor at France’s Sciences Po and former European Bank for Reconstruction and Development chief economist.
Videos circulated on social media of long lines at some Russian ATMs on Sunday morning, although the rush for currency is expected to begin in earnest on Monday as markets open.
There are already signs that the value of the rouble has tumbled. By Sunday evening, Russia’s Tinkoff Bank was buying dollars for 89 rubles and selling them for 154 roubles, nearly double the price just three weeks ago.
The sanctioning of Russia’s central bank, which experts called “unprecedented”, could halt or limit interventions to prop up the value of the currency, making it harder to insulate Russians from the economic backlash of the invasion.
“Sanctioning the central bank is unprecedented,” said Maria Shagina of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and the Geneva
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