Manuel Augusto Moreno, via Getty ImagesRussia, places France on his list of “hostile” countries on March 7, 2022.
RUSSIA. As a new consequence of the war in Ukraine, Moscow has added France to the list of countries “hostile” to Russia, the government announced on Monday, March 7. Russian individuals and legal entities will be able to pay off their debts to these states in rubles, the value of which has fallen by 45% since January.
This list of countries includes the countries of the European Union, Australia, Great Britain, Canada, Monaco, South Korea, USA, Switzerland and Japan and others.
The text was prepared following a presidential decree on Friday that, in vague language, established “interim arrangements” for repaying debts to “certain foreign creditors.”
To do this, the debtor will now be able to apply to a Russian bank with a request to open a special account in rubles in the name of a foreign creditor and send him a payment in ruble equivalent at the Central Bank exchange rate for the day.
Response to economic sanctions
The new temporary procedure applies to payments exceeding 10 million rubles per month in foreign currency terms.
This is one of the first Russian responses to the unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia by many Western countries after its military intervention in Ukraine.
The sanctions caused a historic depreciation of the ruble and are accompanied by a freeze of part of the authorities’ funds abroad, which does not allow the Central Bank to support the Russian currency.
On Monday, the market fears were focused on the possibility of economic sanctions aimed directly at Russian oil.
The first victim in the foreign exchange market, the Russian currency melted 10% on Monday around noon (Paris time) to 137.70 rubles per dollar, touching 142.18 rubles, a new all-time low. Since January 1, the ruble has fallen by 45%.
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