Russian ruble in Yerevan exchange offices shows unprecedented fall

By 13:05 February futures for Brent dropped to $29.09 per barrel on the ICE exchange, and the dollar was traded at 78.671 rubles on the Moscow Stock Exchange, while euro was at 85.695 rubles.

The move brought its fall over the last month against the greenback to over 10 percent and beyond the previous post-1998 low of 80.1 recorded in December 2014 during a run on the ruble and widespread panic on the currency market. The central bank, which responded to the currency crisis a year ago with an emergency 6.5 percentage-point interest-rate increase in the middle of the night, hasn’t sold foreign exchange since allowing the ruble to float freely in December 2014.

Low oil prices are complicating life for the European Central Bank in its struggle to push up the worrisome low inflation in the 19 nations that use the euro currency.

“The ruble is trading on oil and risk sentiment”, said Tom Levinson, chief forex strategist at Sberbank CIB, the investment-banking arm of Russia’s largest lender Sberbank.

On Wednesday, the value of the U.S. dollar rose above the 80.1 rubles level for the first time, which was higher than the levels seen during the shocking plunge of the Russian currency in December 2014, AFP reported. “Therefore while oil is falling the rouble will continue to set lows against the dollar and euro”, said Vladislav Antonov, an analyst at forex broker Alpari. Oil prices are now very volatile and will remain one of the main factors affecting the exchange rate, according to Nabiullina.

The Russian Central Bank came in for criticism from Sergei Glazyev, an economist and aide to Putin.

The low oil price has also put pressure on other post-Soviet economies, particularly oil producers.

The ruble traded above 81.8 to the dollar in Moscow on Wednesday evening, down by around four percent. The Russian ruble slid to a r… Kazakhstan’s KASE index closed down 2.4 percent.