Barbarossa 2 -- Ruble Takedown Exposes Cracks in Putin's Defense

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"The plunge of the Russian currency this week is the drastic outcome of policies implemented by the major imperialist powers to force Russia to submit to American and European imperialism's neo-colonial restructuring of Eurasia. Punishing the Putin regime's interference with their plans for regime change in countries such as Ukraine and Syria, the NATO powers are financially strangling Russia." Alex Lantier, Imperialism and the ruble crisis, World Socialist Web Site

"The struggle for world domination has assumed titanic proportions. The phases of this struggle are played out upon the bones of the weak and backward nations." Leon Trotsky, 1929

Russian President Vladimir Putin suffered a stunning defeat on Tuesday when a US-backed plan to push down oil prices sent the ruble into freefall. Russia's currency plunged 10 percent on Monday followed by an 11 percent drop on Tuesday reducing the ruble's value by more than half in less than a year. The jarring slide was assisted by western sympathizers at Russia's Central Bank who, earlier in the day, boosted interest rates from 10.5 percent to 17 percent to slow the decline. But the higher rates only intensified the outflow of capital which put the ruble into a tailspin forcing international banks to remove pricing and liquidity from the currency leading to the suspension of trade. According to Russia Today:

"Russian Federation Council Chair Valentina Matviyenko has ordered a vote on a parliamentary investigation into the recent activities of the Central Bank and its alleged role in the worst-ever plunge of the ruble rate...

"'I suggest to start a parliamentary investigation into activities of the Central Bank that has allowed violations of the citizens' Constitutional rights, including the right for property,' the RIA Novosti quoted Tarlo as saying on Wednesday.

"The senator added that according to the law, protecting financial stability in the country is the main task of the Central Bank and its senior management. However, the bank's actions, in particular the recent raising of the key interest rate to 17 percent, have so far yielded the opposite results." (Upper House plans probe into Central Bank role in ruble crash, RT)

The prospect that there may be collaborators and fifth columnists at Russia's Central Bank should surprise no one. The RCB is an independent organization that serves the interests of global capital and regional oligarchs the same as central banks everywhere. This is a group that believes that humanity's greatest achievement is the free flow of privately-owned capital to markets around the world where it can extract maximum value off the sweat of working people. Why would Russia be any different in that regard?

It isn't. The actions of the Central Bank have cost the Russian people dearly, and yet, even now the main concern of RCB elites is their own survival and the preservation of the banking system. An article that appeared at Zero Hedge on Wednesday illustrates this point. After ruble trading was suspended, the RCB released a document with "7 new measures" all of which were aimed at protecting the banking system via moratoria on securities losses, breaks on interest rates, additional liquidity provisioning, easier credit and accounting standards, and this gem at the end:

"In order to maintain the stability of the banking sector in the face of increased interest rate and credit risks of a slowdown of the Russian economy the Bank of Russia and the Government of the Russian Federation prepare measures to recapitalize credit institutions in 2015." (Russian Central Bank Releases 7 Measures It Will Take To Stabilize The Financial Sector, Zero Hedge)

Sound familiar? It should. You see, the Russian Central Bank works a lot like the Fed. At the first sign of trouble they build a nice, big rowboat for themselves and their dodgy bank buddies and leave everyone else to drown. That's what these bullet points are all about. Save the banks, and to hell the people who suffer from their exploitative policies.

Here's more from RT:

"Earlier this week a group of State Duma MPs from the Communist Party sent an official address to Putin asking him to sack (Central Bank head, Elvira) Nabiullina, and all senior managers of the Central Bank as their current policies are causing the rapid devaluation of ruble and impoverishment of the majority of the Russian population.

"In their letter, the Communists also recalled Putin's address to the Federal Assembly in which he said that control over inflation must not be in the way of the steady economic growth.

"'They listen to your orders and then do the opposite,' the lawmakers complained." (RT)

In other words, the RCB enforces its own "austerity" policy in Russia just as central bankers do everywhere. There's nothing conspiratorial about this. CBs are owned and controlled by the big money guys which is why their policies invariably serve the interests of the rich. They might not call it "trickle down" or "structural adjustment" (as they do in the US), but it amounts to the same thing, the inexorable shifting of wealth from working class people to the parasitic plutocrats who control the system and its political agents. Same old, same old.