Siluanov named the reason for the fall of the ruble and reported when it will stabilize

The weakening of the ruble is connected with the introduction of sanctions against Gazprombank (GPB); a week or two and “everything will be fine,” Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told journalists, TASS reports .

According to the HEAD of the Ministry of Finance, due to sanctions against GPB, participants in foreign economic activity need time to find new opportunities for settlements with counterparties, and they find such opportunities. "I think that this [the situation with the ruble exchange rate] is a week or two, another week - and everything will be fine," the minister added.

Siluanov noted that at the moment there is no point in increasing the standard for the sale of foreign currency earnings of exporters. "Our current volumes of foreign currency earnings sales are 36% <...>. But in fact, as Rosfinmonitoring tells us, the sales volumes amounted to 52%, that is, there is no point in increasing it," he explained.

On December 5, the Bank of RUSSIA set the official exchange rate at 104.24 rubles per dollar , and at the end of November it reached 109.6 rubles. On the international forex currency market, the dollar exchange rate on November 27 at one point exceeded 114 rubles. This occurred against the backdrop of the November US sanctions against dozens of Russian financial institutions, including Gazprombank, through which payments for Russian gas with counterparties from unfriendly countries were made. If a bank is included in the US blocking sanctions list, it loses access to the dollar system.

The rate began to move down to 100 rubles per $1 after the Central Bank's decision to suspend the purchase of foreign currency under the budget rule and verbal interventions by the authorities. Thus, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the fluctuation of the ruble rate is connected with many factors, there is no reason to panic, the situation is under control; and Minister of Economy Maxim Reshetnikov indicated that the rate will return to its "fundamental values" after the nervousness on the market ceases.

The day before, in a commentary for RBC, Siluanov recalled that the 2025 budget included a stronger ruble exchange rate than is currently observed, and expressed hope that it would return to average values ​​of around 96–97 rubles per $1.

The budget law signed by the Russian President on November 30 sets the average annual dollar-to-ruble exchange rate at 96.5 rubles in 2025 and 100 rubles in 2026 (in accordance with the socio-economic development forecast prepared by the Ministry of Economic Development in September).

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