The Russian ruble yesterday, Tuesday afternoon, continued to decline against the leading global currencies, while updating its lows since early May against the dollar and the euro on reiterated foreign sanctions risks.

The media wrote about the associated risks acting as a trigger increasing demand for hard currencies in several announced emergency M&A deals, in particular, the sale of Russian assets of the German carmaker Volkswagen to a domestic dealership called Avilon.

The Russian authorities have approved the deal at a price of up to €125 million. Reportedly, the decision was dated back to April 17. Thus, on the day the deal was agreed, its price was nearly 11.3 billion rubles, and at the current exchange rate it only slightly exceeds 10.5 billion rubles.

If Avilon needs to buy foreign currency on the domestic market to make the deal, the amount of its purchase will be limited to 50 million euros a day, according to the decision of the currency comptroller. Avilon received permission to buy 100% stakes in the Russian representative office of VW (Volkswagen Group Rus LLC) as well as its fully controlled LLC “Volkswagen Components and Services”, LLC “Scania Leasing”, LLC “Scania Finance” and LLC “Scania Insurance”.

As for the new sanctions, the G7 finance ministers agreed to strengthen the exchange of data on possible evasion of sanctions against Russia and monitor the effectiveness of restrictions on the prices of Russian oil and oil products.

In addition, Brussels is considering the possibility of imposing restrictions on exports of some goods from the European Union to countries it suspects of re-exporting subsanctioned products to Russia. Meanwhile, Russia's Finance Ministry reported that revenues to the federal budget from oil and gas dropped to 647.5 billion rubles ($8.3 billion) in April (-64% YoY) compared with 688.2 billion rubles in March. The European Union should take measures against India's resale of Russian oil after refining it, including into diesel fuel, amid tougher sanctions against Russia's energy sector.