Crimea to Complete Ruble-Switch in Coming Weeks

Ukraine’s breakaway region of Crimea will fully switch to the Russian ruble within the next 2-3 weeks.

“The (Ukrainian) hryvnia circulation deadline should be cut as much as possible. We will try to refuse hryvnia payments in 2-3 weeks”, Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov said on Friday, quoted by ITAR-TASS.

Ukrainian banks in Crimea are increasingly closing. Aksyonov noted that today, about 100 bank offices are operating in the region, while earlier there were more than 800.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to speed up the procedure of introducing ruble transactions in Crimea.

The autonomous republic voted in a referendum on March 16 to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation.