On the eve of the Central Bank's meeting on the key rate, the Bank of Russia's Telegram channel published a message consisting of a chaotic set of the letters "y" and "f". A few seconds later, the post was deleted, but screenshots instantly spread across the internet.
Later, a story appeared on the channel with an explanation: "The admin cat is using a new keyboard today," followed by a photo of a keyboard where all the keys had been replaced with the letter "y." Tomorrow the cat will "go live from a calculator," the Central Bank promised.
Some users tried to decipher the number of letters as a signal about the future decision on the key rate, but most commenters agreed that the writing style in the post was indeed "cat-like" and that the message carried no semantic meaning.
The Central Bank meeting will take place on Friday, 13 February. Analysts expect the rate to remain at 16%, Interfax reported, while Anatoly Aksakov, head of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, allowed for a cut to 15.5%.
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