MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin acknowledged on Monday that Russia’s economic reality had changed considerably, but said there was no reason to doubt the effectiveness and reliability of the central bank’s measures, which noted to date its key rate at 20% to protect the economy from the unprecedented sanctions taken by Western countries.
The Russian central bank has also put in place capital control mechanisms in response to measures by Western countries after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, aimed at limiting Russia’s ability to mobilize its 640 billion dollars of gold reserves and and exclude the major Russian banks from the SWIFT international interbank system.
These measures have caused the ruble to fall from historic lows.
“The economic reality has changed considerably,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a news conference. “These are heavy sanctions, they are problematic, but Russia has the capacity to compensate for the damage caused.”
“Russia has been preparing for possible sanctions for a long time, including the most severe ones. There are plans to respond to them. They have been prepared and will be implemented as difficulties arise,” added the Kremlin spokesman.
Dmitri Peskov also declared that the sanctions taken against Vladimir Putin were futile.
“The sanctions contain absurd allegations about certain assets,” he said. “The president (Putin) has no assets other than those he has declared.”
He added that Vladimir Poutine will work this day on the economic questions at the time of the meetings with in particular the president of the Russian Central bank, the Minister of Finances and the president of the Russian bank Sberbank.
Asked about the central bank’s handling of the crisis, Dmitry Peskov replied: “We had no reason to doubt the efficiency and reliability of our central bank. doubt now.”
(Report Moscow Bureau, French version Matthieu Protard, told by Blandine Hnault)