Despite the fact that the positions of the ruble significantly strengthened at the end of 2017 and in the early days of 2018, and experts confidently expressed the opinion that this trend will continue until at least March, at the end of the first working week, the Russian currency began to sharply lose "points". The reason for this is the possible new anti-Russian sanctions on the part of Washington, which were actively spoken overseas, and which were harshly commented in the Kremlin. The US dollar exchange rate on the Moscow Stock Exchange on January 12 for one day won back the ruble 14.25 kopecks and rose to 56.57 rubles. Investors are anxiously waiting for the statement of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, about imposing additional sanctions on Russia. According to the media, the list will include more than 50 businessmen who are members of the closest circle of the Russian leadership and, probably, their families. However, there is another factor that had a significant negative impact on the exchange rate of the domestic currency - oil prices went downwards.

On Friday, for a barrel of black gold Brent gave $ 69.08, which is 0.26% less than the previous day's trading. WTI crude oil prices also fell 0.47% to $ 63.5 per barrel. And the ruble followed them crawled down. But even a few days ago, there was nothing like a kickback - since December 30 of last year, the Central Bank of Russia lowered the official rate of the dollar to the Russian currency to 57.60 rubles, and on January 4 the "American" did not cost 56.80 rubles.