Russians lined up to purchase U.S. dollars after the Moscow Exchange enforced an immediate suspension of trading in dollars and euros in response to fresh U.S. sanctions, a video circulating on social media appears to show.
Russia’s central bank said Wednesday that exchange trading and settlements of deliverable instruments in U.S. dollars and euros were suspended effective June 13 “due to the introduction of restrictive measures by the United States against the Moscow Exchange Group.” It added that over-the-counter trading data would be used to set official exchange rates for the currencies.
The move followed the U.S. Treasury’s expansion of an executive order issued by President Joe Biden in December that allows Washington to directly sanction foreign banks facilitating significant transactions for Russia. The U.S. threatened to block banks that conduct business with firms that support Russia’s defense industry from its financial system.
“In St. Petersburg, a line formed at a [money] exchanger after the news about the suspension of currency trading on the Moscow Exchange,” Russian Telegram channel Bankrollo wrote, sharing footage of people in a queue. Bankrollo has more than 300,000 subscribers and posts updates about Russia’s economy and banks.
The dollar rate is flying up in many banks,” the Bankrollo channel said in a separate post. “Norvik Bank has set a new dollar exchange rate—the bank buys at 50 rubles and sells at 200.”
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