The market The Moscow stock market is falling sharply and the ruble is diving due to the threat of war in Ukraine

Moscow the stock market was down sharply on monday and the russian ruble clearly slipped as the deepening crisis in ukraine triggered a wave of sales of russian investments.

The dollar-denominated RTS index of the Moscow Stock Exchange fell by about 8 percent when the stock market closed and the Moex Russia index denominated in rubles fell by about 6 percent.

West fear that Russia is attacking Ukraine because it has concentrated about 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine. Western countries have threatened Russia with economic sanctions if the country invades Ukraine.

The crisis seemed to deepen over the weekend as the United States and Britain ordered the families of the staff of their Ukrainian embassies to leave Ukraine.

NATO said on Monday it would move troops to standby and send reinforcements to Eastern Europe as the crisis deepens.

In addition, the newspaper The New York Times told the president Joe Biden considering sending 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern Europe.

In the foreign exchange market the ruble had depreciated by 1.6 percent, so that one dollar cost 78.67 rubles. Against the euro, the ruble had slipped 1.2 percent.

The ruble was the lowest against the dollar since November 2020 and the lowest against the euro since July 2020.

Russia’s central bank tried to calm the market by saying it would stop buying foreign currency on the domestic market from Monday.

Spokesman for the Russian administration Dmitry Peskov at the news conference, accused the Russian market of falling prices in Western hysteria and pointed out that the market is packing around the world on Monday.