Putin can sell but he can’t spend.
Rubles are worthless to Putin if he can’t spend them outside his own craphole country.
Putin croaks within 8 months. This is my bet.
Putin has been forcing many world buyers ( many acting on behalf of the EU and the US) to convert their hard currency into rubles at Russian banks, paying a fee for the privlidge and then paying in “rubles” for the oil, coal, gas and grain that they want to buy at world prices. The Chinese, Indians and Brazilians get discounts and pay in hard currency.
MarxistMaximus speaks! Not being able to import western goods means that Russian industry is forced to invest in its own industrial and intellectual capital development. There are a lot of great engineers in Russia and they will invent their way around these stupid sanctions. Get ready for Russia to start taking leadership positions in many areas of manufacturing. We’re sanctioning a country that has as much or more natural resources as America does and a lot of brilliant people -they aren’t going to starve.
What currency is the west converting into rubles to pay for oil? Seems to me Russia has plenty of foreign currency when the convert. I'm not a financial expert by any means but just a thought.
It is gonna be amusing to watch the western bankers paper over derivative default daisy chains.
Grab the popcorn!
Lie lie lie—it is the way of “democracies”.