The Russian ruble surpassed the dollar for the seventh time last week. While analysts downplayed its rise, one economist stated that people shouldn’t ignore the currency rate. Additionally, Joe Biden blames Vladimir Putin for high gas prices.
The Russian ruble has been outperforming the U.S. dollars since May 2015. Many people have stated that Western sanctions have failed to work. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that attempts at destroying the Russian economy failed. Putin stated that the idea was to crush the Russian economy violently. They failed. “They didn’t succeed.”
Russia is however the second largest exporter of oil, and holds the top spot as the biggest exporter of gas . The United States and the European Union (EU), are working hard to sanction Russia, but the EU has to buy oil and gas from Russia in non-obvious ways. Fortune India claims India is ostensibly purchasing oil from Russia and then selling it back to Europe for a profit. The New York Post explains how analysts believe that the strong ruble is due to Russia’s capital controls as well as the fact that oil prices and gas prices worldwide have soared. China, India, and South Korea also have been buying oil from Russia.
According to a study by Bloomberg Economics, Putin could make around $321 billion from energy exports alone. However, Tatiana Orlova (lead emerging markets economist at Oxford Economics ) stated to CBS that Russia’s import markets are in serious trouble. Orlova, in an interview with CBS Money Watch, stated that “aside from soaring export revenues we have a collapse of Russian imports due to Western sanctions.” CNBC’s Max Hess, a Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said that Russia still enjoys record profits. He said:
The ruble exchange rate is because Russia has record foreign exchange surpluses. While Russia is selling less to the West at the moment, the West is moving to reduce its dependence on Russia. However, they still sell a lot of oil and gas at record high prices. This is creating a large current account surplus.
Biden: Service Providers refuse to update ATMs in Russia. He says Americans will have to pay high gas prices ‘as long as it takes’ to stop Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The U.S. and other Western corporations are trying to suppress the Russian economy. The new 100-ruble bill was introduced by the central bank of the country. However, automated teller machines (ATMs), are able to issue the new bill. NCR and Diebold Nixdorf, two of Russia’s largest ATM companies, have been forced to leave Russia by sanctions from the West. According to some ATM service providers, they refuse to update ATMs and reject new banknotes. Unnamed sources in the payments industry claim that Russian ATMs are not a priority. According to a source familiar with the matter, “Given the geopolitical environment, it is difficult for us to imagine that development in Russia will be a priority.”
Joe Biden, the American president, was asked by a NATO summit press conference whether Americans will continue to have to pay higher gas prices. Biden stated that it would take “as much time as it takes” for Putin to defeat the Ukraine invasion. Biden stated that Russia can’t defeat Ukraine or move beyond Ukraine for as long as it takes. was told by Biden . Fortune reports that Americans don’t seem to agree with Biden’s decisions. According to the report, the Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll shows a lack confidence in Biden’s leadership.
70% of Americans don’t approve of Biden’s management of the U.S. economic situation, 43% of Democrats included. 60% of Americans don’t approve of Biden’s leadership. 80% of Americans think America’s economic conditions are poor. 67% of Americans identify themselves as Democrats. Biden and his administration believe that Putin is responsible for the rise in gas prices around the world. “We could have turned our backs on Putin’s barbaric war in Ukraine, and the price for gas wouldn’t be so high,” Biden stated June 27.
