Foreign exchange markets experiencing speculative wave

Aleksei Avdonin, an analyst with the Belarusian Institute of Strategic Research, comments on the situation in foreign exchange market

“The trends observed currently in the foreign exchange market – allegedly the Russian Rouble has weakened – are a speculative wave,” the expert told Alfa Radio. “These actions, including on the part of western investment funds, are aiming to undermine Russia's financial and economic stability and can be compared to an information campaign against the Russian Federation. They have nothing to do with the real economic state of Russia but indicate that these are actually the last gasps and convulsions of the western world. Transition to Russian Roubles and Yuans and, accordingly, removing Dollars from transactions – will become the next stage.”

Mr. Avdonin also commented on Russia’s removal from SWIFT. “It is a private company that has created algorithms to make transactions anywhere in the world. Banks – when using this programme – see, for example, card payments of any citizen in any country. But now, when cards have actually been disabled [for Russians], the possibility of using them abroad... Imagine, you used to receive many millions of Dollars from banks, but now – by a political will – this is no longer possible. What will be the next stage? This will result in corporate downsizing since [companies] were conditionally focused on billions of Dollars of profit but will simply lose huge sums in 2022. The dismissal of employees will begin in the countries of the collective West – both in banks and in the companies that worked with SWIFT.”

The programme host, Vadim Shepet, added in the end: the country had prepared for disconnecting from SWIFT, and there are already analogues of this service.