this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
240 points (98.0% liked)

News

23274 readers
3176 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Vladimir Putin’s luck may be running out now that the ruble plunged below one cent, the lowest level against the U.S. dollar since the early days of his war in Ukraine.

top 15 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 52 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Paywalled article.

A few years ago 1 Ruble = 0.015 USD this was pretty consistent for a while. Now 1 Ruble = 0.010 USD this has fluctuated pretty wildly.

The fluctuation is far more important than the actual number. Nobody cares if 1 Ruble = $1 or $1000 as long as you can rely on it to be that next week and next year. But the fact that you have no idea how far down (or up) it will go means that people aren't going to want to rely on holding any currency in Russia.

[–] teft@startrek.website 22 points 1 year ago

Vladimir Putin’s luck may be running out now that the ruble plunged below one cent, the lowest level against the U.S. dollar since the early days of his war in Ukraine.

The Russian president, who briefly faced down a coup attempt in June, could long point to the resilience of his currency in the face of sanctions as a propaganda victory that proved just how impotent Western economic reprisals were.

More than 500 days since his army invaded Ukraine, it looks as if Moscow’s highly respected central bank governor can no longer perform miracles for her boss.

The ruble that Elvira Nabiullina manages crashed through the psychological support of 100 to the U.S. dollar and on Monday is now worth less than a penny, the first time since March 23 of last year.

“They’re laughing at us,” scathed Vladimir Solovyov, Russia’s most well-known state TV personality and a chief Putin ally, already last week.

The war hawk demanded Nabiullina explain herself to the population now that currency has lost roughly a quarter of its value against the dollar since the start of this year.

On Sunday, images were shared online of a small symbolic protest mounted in western Siberia: A building’s chyron kept repeating the message that “Putin is a dickhead and a thief,” calling the ruble’s exchange rate “crazy.”

Her institution, meanwhile, has countered by arguing a softer ruble does not present risks to the country’s financial stability. Nonetheless, Russia’s central bank decided to freeze purchases of foreign currency on the domestic market through the remainder of this year to restore faith in the sliding ruble. Russia’s currency strength handed Putin a PR victory

Following a brief collapse in the initial aftermath of last year’s Feb. 24 invasion, which saw Russia’s fiat tender plunge to a record low of 120 to the dollar, the ruble rebounded to trade at one point at highs not seen since 2015, around 50 to the dollar.

This gave the Kremlin an important PR victory by suggesting Russia’s economy was strong enough to withstand anything the West threw at it.

This in turn prompted soul-searching among Ukraine’s Western backers while bolstering critics alarmed more at the cost of soaring food and energy prices than at Russia’s empire-building.

“It’s slightly more valuable than it was on the day that Russia invaded Ukraine. The economic situation in the United States by contrast is deteriorating fast,” then Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a chief critic of U.S. aid to Kyiv, said last April.

The clearest signal that Russia is losing this war? #Russia Ruble weakened beyond 100 per Dollar for 1st time in 17mth, extending a slide that threatens to stoke inflation in an economy that has been kneecapped by Western sanctions. Ruble has fallen 27% vs Dollar YTD & 23% vs… pic.twitter.com/cr763vz21E
— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) August 14, 2023

Nabiullina was celebrated for cleverly steering her financial system through the worst of the turmoil by placing a range of capital controls that quickly stabilized the currency and prevented mass outflows.

“They were a quick fix for the ruble in 2022, but are counterproductive in the long run,” wrote Janis Kluge, senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, last week.

The fresh signs of economic weakness come at an important juncture in the war. The Russian army is attempting to defend large swaths of territory seized in the early months of the invasion against a Kyiv counteroffensive boasting modern Western military equipment.

Any material losses on the battlefield could further undermine Putin’s authority, already weakened following the challenge made by Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in June.

Subscribe to Well Adjusted, our newsletter full of simple strategies to work smarter and live better, from the Fortune Well team. Sign up today.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml -1 points 1 year ago

No one wants to hold Rubles when the entire Western world is deploying extreme sanctions against Russia, especially when the West created, dominates, and manipulates the global financial system.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Tedesche@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

I think mostly the world is laughing because of how Russia's army turned out to be a tissue paper tiger.

[–] eran_morad@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

lol, fuck the blyats.

[–] Shotgun_Alice@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Putin if you're out there and you read this, yes, yes we're are.

[–] yuki2501@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

This might be the beginning of the end for Putin. They're going to "retire" him, if you know what I mean.

[–] ArugulaZ@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Vladimir Putin, shown exaggerating the size of his penis.

[–] PaulDevonUK@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are they running out of funds to cook the books?

[–] sadreality@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Account deficit for first 6 months is like 30 billion. They entered the war with 300b pile available to them.

They used much of that to prop RUB. Between deficit, inability to raise FX on global markets and war spending they got to be starting to run out and fx markets smell it.

Still a while to go tho. Ukraine still has to spend another year or two grinding Russia down.

But Ukraine is supported by half the planet that happens to be the rich half.

Russias hope is that China will bail them out when shit hits the fan.

[–] awwwyissss@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Supported by half if you include people in authoritarian countries who don't have free media or speech.

If you look at free people, almost all of them support Ukraine or are neutral.

[–] cedarmesa@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[–] ZILtoid1991@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Still long way until it worth less than the Zimbabwean dollar.

I thought the ZWD had been suspended indefinitely?