This ain't the old Soviet Union of your memories Vlad, it's a free market economy linked into the global economy and he broke the UNs golden rule, the UN charter, among a host of other diplomatic agreements. This is not Vlad's first rodeo, he has invaded other former Soviet Republics and is implicated in crimes against humanity in Syria too. Mad Vlad will have to go, how is up to the Russians.
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Shoppers and business people express despair and disillusion as sanctions cause run on rouble
www.theguardian.com
‘The damage is done’: Russians face economic point of no return
Shoppers and business people express despair and disillusion as sanctions cause run on rouble
As
markets opened in a panic on Monday, many Russians rushed to local cashpoints in Moscow to retrieve their savings before the damage got any worse.
“It said they had dollars so I came here immediately,” said Alexei Presnyakov, 32, pointing to an app for Russia’s Tinkoff Bank, indicating he could withdraw hard currency. About 20 people were queued in line. “Yesterday [the rate] was 80 [to the dollar]. Today it’s 100. Or 150.”
“I just made a spontaneous decision today that I would ask [out of work] and go around until I took out all my money,” he said. “Before it was worth zero.”
Within minutes, however, the word traveled down the queue: the dollars were gone.
Nearly half the queue walked off. “Who needs roubles?” one woman said sarcastically as she walked away.
From shopping malls to corporate boardrooms, Russians were trying to find their footing on Monday in what the Kremlin described as the “altered economic reality” that the country was now facing following sanctions on Russia’s Central Bank and other key financial institutions. There were signs that something extraordinary was taking place: the Moscow Exchange, Russia’s largest stock market, has halted trading until 5 March.
With its reserves frozen, the Central Bank announced it would more than double its main interest rates to 20%, the highest this century, and force major exporting companies, including large energy producers like Gazprom and Rosneft, to sell 80% of their foreign currency revenues, effectively buying roubles to prop up the currency rate.
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