RTThu, 09 Aug 2018 14:33 UTC
© Mike Kemp / Getty Images
The Russian currency is slipping on Thursday after Washington proposed the latest round of anti-Russian sanctions. The ruble has hit the lowest level against the US dollar in nearly two years.
The US government is
considering a broadened ban on dollar transactions by Russian lenders and operations with Russia's newly-issued sovereign bonds.
The latest punitive measures are being considered in response to Russia's alleged involvement in the nerve agent attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the UK. The Russian government has repeatedly denied involvement and has called for an open investigation.
The news sent the Russian currency falling to 66.48 against the dollar, its weakest since November 2016.
The dollar-denominated RTS, an index of 50 Russian stocks traded on the Moscow Exchange, was down 2.14 percent at 11:15 GMT, with financials and industrials facing the hardest hit so far. Both have declined by over 2.6 percent.
According to the US State Department,
the sanctions targeting Russian exports of electronics and other national security-controlled equipment will come into effect around August 22.
The decision was reportedly based on the assumption that Moscow broke a 1991 international law against chemical and biological warfare. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied the allegations, while the UK authorities have provided no proof of Russia's involvement in the case.
The next round of US sanctions may reportedly include further decline in diplomatic ties between the countries, a ban on flights of Russia's Aeroflot airlines to the US and almost a complete suspension of US exports to Russia.
Aeroflot stock has dropped four percent, while state bank VTB declined by 3.9 percent.
Comment: The best characterization of the anti-Russian sanctions so far comes from senior Russian senator
Konstantin Kosachev:
"If these sanctions are implemented in their full announced volume this would mean that the United States is yet another time using the behavior of a police state that extracts evidence from suspects through torture and threats and eventually executes punishment for non-existent crimes, in the worst tradition of the infamous Lynch Law," the head of the Upper House Committee for International Relations, Senator Konstantin Kosachev, told Kommersant newspaper on Thursday.
Kosachev added that the news was especially disturbing because it was not about some initiative voiced by a few congressmen who cannot get over the hysteria generated since the presidential election two years ago, but a premeditated action of the US administration and the US State Department, the agencies that cannot come up with such initiatives without informing President Donald Trump.
Comment: The best characterization of the anti-Russian sanctions so far comes from senior Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev: