Russia’s main exchange has halted trading in dollars and euros after a sharp escalation in US sanctions targeted the remaining links between the Russian financial system and foreign banks.
Russia’s central bank said exchange rates for the rouble will now reflect interbank transactions, after US sanctions announced on Wednesday on the Moscow Exchange (Moex), Russia’s oldest marketplace, forced trades off the central market.
The changes mean that pricing of the rouble will become more opaque, affecting its convertibility and raising costs for importers and exporters after sweeping sanctions that the US Treasury described as targeting Russia’s “war economy”.