Overwhelmed by patriotism amid lingering US sanctions, the Kremlin announced its plans to de-dollarize the domestic economy. Russian Premier Dmitry Medvedev cleared up the case for the angry population. In fact, the complete ban on the US dollar is impossible in the modern world for the simple reason. Russia’s public revenues mainly come from exports of commodities and energy to more developed countries.
Despite the smooth theory, Moscow’s efforts to abandon the US currency have failed in practice. Russia will hardly survive without trade relations. The Kremlin is unlikely to assure its Western partners to use the volatile Russian ruble in invoices and payments. “The US dollar is certainly the most important global currency and a preferable reserve currency. We do not mean to ban the US dollar from circulation in our country by any directive,” the Prime Minister stated. Neither the euro, nor the yuan, nor any other reserve currency will be able to replace the US dollar in full. In other words, the Kremlin’s campaign against the US currency is nothing but the intention to reduce a share of the US dollar in international settlements.
There is nothing unusual in it. A lot of countries pursue the same policy. Some of them are interested in promoting their own currency. Other countries like Turkey and China have been also targeted by US sanctions, so they are willing to cooperate with Russia. “We have to go into de-dollarization because our own currency should be given the highest priority. We will certainly benefit from increasing payments in the national currency. So, our goal is to make trade deals with other countries in rubles,” Medvedev noted.
