Both facing pressure from Washington, Moscow and Ankara ditched the US dollar when finalizing their landmark S-400 air defense missile systems deal and will do so in the future, Russian leader Vladimir Putin said.

 

“We understand that if we’ll make transactions in [US] dollars, they won’t come through,” Putin told reporters on Wednesday, citing his recent talks with Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “So we thought up another option.”

 

The EU is punishing itself for doing Washington's bidding and sanctioning Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. However, while the restrictions policy does not harm the US, the EU suffers billions in losses.

In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País, Lavrov lamented the dismal state of EU-Russia relations, describing them as far from normal. The divisions are being fueled from across the pond, he said.

 

The number of abortions has decreased by almost 30 percent in Russia over the past five years, but is still high, Russian Deputy Health Minister Oleg Salagay said on Friday.

 

Moscow's Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH) hosted the solemn opening of the exhibition of documents of 16th-20th centuries from Turkey's State Archives titled '500 years of Russian-Turkish relations in archival documents.' The event was timed to the 200th anniversary of Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Oriental Studies.

 

Moscow and Minsk can bring mutual trade to $50 billion, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

 

"We are able to bring mutual trade to the $50 billion level. To compare, I just visited India with population of 1.1 billion people, whose trade turnover with Russia is roughly $10 billion," TASS cited the Russian leader as saying.

 

 Libya is eager to buy 1 million tonnes of wheat and animal feed from Russia for around $700 million, Libyan Government of National Accord Economy and Industry Minister Nasir Shaglan said in an interview published Sunday.

 

Azerbaijan and Russia may increase trade turnover by 20-25%, Russia's Deputy Economic Development Minister Azer Talibov said on the sidelines of the 9th Azerbaijan-Russia Interregional Forum.

 

According to him, in order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to eliminate certain obstacles in mutual trade. "If these obstacles are eliminated, we can increase the turnover by 20-25%," the deputy minister stressed.

 

The ruble ranked among the top three undervalued world currencies, according to Deutsche Bank's Behavioral Equilibrium Exchange Rate (BEER). It is 15% weaker than its "fair rate," the bank's economist said. In the review of Deutsche Bank, the analyst predicts the strengthening of the Russian currency to 60 rubles per dollar.

 

The Russian ruble has fallen to its lowest level against the dollar since April 2016 amid fears of new economic sanctions by the United States.

 

In Thursday morning trading in Moscow, the ruble had fallen by around 2 percent to trade at nearly 69 to the dollar.

 

The latest drop in the value of the Russian currency came amid talk that the U.S. was readying further sanctions. On Tuesday, the U.S. slapped sanctions on two Russian shipping companies over alleged oil trading with North Korea.