Ruble rebounds from brink but Russians wary

MOSCOW: Russians sighed with relief when the ruble rebounded in recent days, but with painful memories of the financial crisis still fresh, many are rattled and fear the respite could prove shortlived.

The ruble has been sliding for months, but it turned into a plunge at the beginning of the month, with the currency losing nearly 10 per cent of its value in the space of just a few days amid renewed tensions over Ukraine and a fall in global oil prices that threatens Russia’s finances.

“I was scared,” said Natalia, a 26-year-old Muscovite. “At first, I thought it was about (forex) speculation and that it would right itself. But now there is great uncertainty.”

The ruble has now shed a quarter of its value against the euro and almost a third against the dollar since the beginning of the year, crimping the purchasing power of Russian consumers and putting the worth of savings in domestic currency at risk.

Natalia, a marketing specialist, said she first planned to protect her savings from devaluation by converting part of her nest egg into foreign currencies, but changed her mind as the ruble’s fall eased.

And now? “I haven’t got a clue,” she said, convinced that the crisis is far from over.

Queues have built up outside some ATMs and currency exchange points amid rising demand for foreign currency.

While not yet widespread, the phenomenon has sparked concerns that the situation is not far from a total panic that could put the ruble into an uncontrollable downward spiral.

Russia’s central bank -- publicly backed by President Vladimir Putin -- seems to have managed to calm the mood by clarifying its policies and warning speculators of shock interventions in the event of a threat to the financial system.

The ruble rebounded, but did not come close to regaining the ground it lost at the beginning of the month nor enough to stem another rise in consumer prices as inflation is already rising more than 8 per cent.

Russia “came within a whisper of a full blown currency crisis,” said Chris Weafer, a senior partner at Macro Advisory consultancy. But “some major threats remain,” he added.

Russia’s economy and particularly its banking sector have been hard-hit by unprecedented Western sanctions imposed over the Kremlin’s alleged role in the Ukraine crisis.