Moscow - Crimea is adopting the Russian rouble as its official currency and will drop the Ukrainian hryvnia in April, Russian news agency RIA quoted a senior official in the government of the region, which has voted to become part of Russia, as saying.
Crimean authorities had earlier said the hryvnia would to remain an official currency until 2016.
“Unfortunately, I have to say that parallel circulation of the rouble and the hryvnia will not work out. We are switching to the rouble zone,” state-run RIA cited Crimean Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Temirgaliyev as saying. - Reuters