Russian Central Bank In Panic Mode Trying To Stabalize The Ruble As It Plummets In Value After Invasion of Ukraine

It seems that Russian President Vladimir Putin bit off more than he can chew, as his unnecessary invasion of Ukraine is having negative effects on his own Rodina.

The Bank of Russia is in panic mode as they invoke emergency measures to try to stabilize the country’s economy in order to prevent the ruble from dropping even more than it already has.

According to Bloomberg, for the first time, the Russian central bank said that it will intervene in the foreign exchange market and expand its Lombard list of securities that it will accept as collateral.

The Russian central bank didn’t say if it would raise interest rates, but it did agree to give Russian banks more liquidity, while it prepares to offer banks 1 trillion rubles in an overnight repo auction. That’s equivalent to about $11.5 billion.

Putin ordered Russian forces to launch an invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, and to take out strategic targets to demilitarize the country. When they did that, the ruble dropped to a record low.

Responding to the Russian invasion, leaders of Western countries are carrying out an array of sanctions that are aimed at weakening the Russian economy.

President Joe Biden announced less than a day after the invasion of Ukraine started that the US would target Russia’s largest financial institutions, VTB and Sherbank, to keep them from using the US financial system to make transactions. These sanctions will reduce close to 80 percent of Russian banking assets. His handlers told him he did a great job getting the message out.

Biden was expected to call for Russia’s removal from the Society of Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication or SWIFT, but he didn’t, saying, “It is always an option, but right now it’s not the position the rest of Europe wishes to take.”

If Russia were tossed out of SWIFT, it would do great harm to the Russian economy in the short term and it would be difficult for their economy to recover as it could stop Russia from selling oil and gas internationally, and that’s the bulk of their economy. If Biden would go back to Trump’s energy policies, the US could in short time sell oil and gas to the European market to edge Russia out. But don’t hold your breathe because Biden is beholden to the climate change nuts.

Putin’s personal spokesman said the Russian president did not care one bit about threats of sanctions prior to the invasion. I bet he now believes he should have thought it through some more.

Western leaders agreed to target individual Russian banks for removal from the SWIFT system rather than all Russian banks, so that they can prevent the central bank of Russia from manipulating monetary policy and take aggressive steps to sanction and punish Russian individuals financially who were involved in the invasion of Ukraine.

The Western leaders agreed to target specific Russian banks for removal from the SWIFT system instead of all of them, to prevent the Russian central bank from manipulating its monetary policy. The removals from SWIFT are also targeted to punish those who got involved in the invasion of Ukraine.

This prevention of Russia from using SWIFT will allow the Western nations to isolate Russian banks and suppress them from conducting trade with its largest trading partners.

And the more Putin misbehaves, the more the West will punish him. Putin now put his nuclear response teams on “high alert” claiming he did so because of “aggressive” messaging coming from NATO. The man attacked a sovereign nation for no acceptable reason. NATO has the right to threaten retaliation if Putin invades a NATO member.

Russian citizens in Moscow are protesting the invasion of Ukraine. Putin has stirred up a hornet’s nest, and he only has himself to blame.