Russia will still prop up rouble in August as Trump deadline looms

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia will continue to support the rouble with net sales of foreign currency, according to new figures from the Finance Ministry released on Tuesday, ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's deadline to show progress towards peace in Ukraine.

The Finance Ministry said it will cut its foreign currency sales from its rainy day National Wealth Fund to 0.3 billion roubles ($3.75 million) a day from August 7 to September 4, down from 0.82 billion roubles previously.

The measure will reduce the state's overall daily net forex sales, which combine forex operations by the ministry and the central bank, by 5% to 9.24 billion roubles a day from August 7.

Under a complex set of foreign currency operations, the central bank buys and sells forex to ensure a steady supply on the domestic market and also on behalf of the finance ministry, which runs the National Wealth Fund.

The ministry said it will sell 6.2 billion roubles of foreign currency during this period, compared with 18.77 billion roubles previously.

Trump has said that from August 8 he will impose new sanctions on Russia as well as on countries that buy its energy exports, unless Moscow takes steps to end its 3-1/2 year war with Ukraine.

The rouble weakened initially in response to Trump's threats but has since rebounded. The rouble traded 0.2% weaker at 79.95 to the U.S. dollar at 0930 GMT on Tuesday.

($1 = 79.9000 roubles)

(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy Papachristou and Gleb Bryanski; editing by Giles Elgood)

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