Photo: https://www.rbc.ru/
Weakening of the ruble is due to the fact that Russia began to import more goods, said Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. According to him, those restrictions on oil and gas prices, adopted by the countries of the European Union, have mainly a moral impact on market actors.
According to Siluanov, there are only limit prices for Russian gas and oil now. There are no financial consequences of these actions, but they have “had a moral impact” on market actors. As reported by Kommersant, the ruble is losing its value this month, but this fact, according to the Finance Minister, will not require revision of the official estimates of annual inflation. In addition, Siluanov told reporters that inflation in Russia is currently below the forecast made by experts, and therefore this circumstance “will not affect our expectations for the current year.”
Responding to journalists' questions, the Finance Minister, as Lenta.ru reports, clarified that the ruble exchange rate is floating, and the devaluation of the Russian currency is influenced by the intensification of imports.
However, Siluanov stressed that this year, the Ministry of Finance has no plans to return to buying currency, including the yuan. Such operations may resume in the coming 2023, if there are revenues from oil and gas sales in excess of the base amount.
The ruble has started to fall this week. Yesterday the dollar was worth over 72 rubles, while the maximum, set on April 28, was updated. The euro reached 77 rubles for the first time since April 27. However, in the evening the Russian national currency began to strengthen again. The dollar lost 2.89% of its value at 17:24 Moscow time, falling to 68.94 rubles per $1. The euro also dropped to 73.99 rubles per $1 at 17:17 Moscow time.
Recall that Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly underlined that the West uses the dollar as a weapon, thus discrediting the idea of international financial reserves. It is known that part of Russia's gold and foreign currency reserves is under “arrest.” This is how the U.S. and the EU reacted to the special military operation on the territory of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the head of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina says, as reported by RIA Novosti, that Russia currently has a sufficient amount of foreign exchange reserves and there is no need to specially accumulate them. Rosneft announced the discovery of a new oil and gas condensate field in Yakutia with estimated reserves of more than 9.5 billion cubic meters of gas and more than 1.5 million tons of oil. The field was named Kubalakhskoye.