Russia has moved to support a number of large companies and banks as it tries to prop up a struggling economy and a banking sector battered by the rouble’s jitters, the Financial Times reported. On Wednesday, the government said it would support Yamal LNG, the Arctic gas project of Novatek, with Rbs150bn. Separately Gazprombank, the country’s third-largest lender, said the government had bought Rbs39.95bn in preferred shares, using money from a subordinated deposit the bank had returned to the National Wealth Fund.

Russia’s economy contracted for the first time in more than five years in November, taking a step toward a full-scale recession next year, data from the economy ministry showed Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported. After an optimistic start to the year, when Russia hosted the Winter Olympic Games and enjoyed high oil prices, the world’s largest country by area later stumbled over Western sanctions, massive capital outflows and a sudden drop in oil prices. Now the economy is widely seen contracting next year for the first time since the global financial crisis.

Foreign banks have fled Russia in dramatic fashion in 2014, cutting back their exposure to the country well ahead of the latest escalation of the rouble crisis, the Financial Times reported. Overall syndicated loan volumes this year collapsed to just 14 per cent of the 2013 total, as western lenders retrenched from a market that looked increasingly risky as the year progressed. Foreign banks are expected to continue retreating next year, putting further pressure on Russia’s already fragile economy.

Seeking to calm growing fears of an economic meltdown, the Russian government on Wednesday introduced a package of measures to reduce pressures on banks and urged the public to stay calm, the International New York Times reported. It seemed to work, at least temporarily. By Wednesday evening, amid indications of a government intervention in the currency markets, the ruble had recovered more than 11 percent of the previous day’s losses. Prime Minister Dmitri A.

The battered ruble plunged to a record low against the dollar again Tuesday, as investors grew convinced that the Russian central bank’s surprise move overnight to jack up interest rates to 17% wouldn’t be enough to alleviate the pressure on the currency from falling oil prices and western sanctions, The Wall Street Journal reported. By early afternoon in Moscow, the ruble dropped sharply, reaching 80 to the dollar, a record low and a 15% decline from opening levels when it rallied briefly. At 4:30 p.m. local time, the dollar was trading around 73 rubles.

Russia has a new enemy: the currency markets. Russia’s government is in the middle of an all-out fight to preserve the value of the ruble in the face of plummeting oil prices and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, the International New York Times reported. In the boldest move yet to stanch the bleeding, the Central Bank of Russia announced a stunning interest rate increase in the middle of the night. Its main deposit rate is now 17 percent, up from 10.5 percent when Russian banks closed for business on Monday.

The ruble’s plunge against the euro and the dollar is upending the lives of many in Russia’s middle class, which in recent years has gotten used to vacations abroad and Western products from gadgets to food, The Wall Street Journal reported. Booming oil prices helped Russia’s middle class grow to 60% of the population in 2010 from 30% a decade earlier, according to the World Bank.

The Perm-based Avialeasing investment company has lodged a bankruptcy petition against Russia’s leading regional carrier, UTair, which has failed to pay 3.5 million rubles ($67,000) for leasing Tu-154-M planes, the press service of the arbitration court said on Monday, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported. The airline’s current debt exceeds 3.5 million rubles, the court in Russia’s Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region said citing Avialeasing. “That’s why Avialeasing has asked the court to declare UTair bankrupt.” The court is expected to announce the decision within five days, the press service said.

The Kutuzoff Tower in Moscow, the most valuable of the foreign properties that were once owned by the children of the bankrupt businessman Seán Quinn, is likely go up for sale next year. The office block, which two years ago was considered to have a value of approximately $180 million, is the subject of a bankruptcy process overseen by the Russian courts that involves a requirement to liquidate the asset, the Irish Times reported. The deadline for putting the building up for sale is likely to be early next year.

The Bank of Russia had no other option but to let the ruble float freely, and the decision to do so had helped stop it from hitting fresh record lows, Elvira Nabiullina, the bank’s chairwoman, said on Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The ruble has lost more than 30% of its value against the dollar so far this year, hit by lower oil prices, capital outflows and Western sanctions stemming from the Ukraine crisis. After $30 billion on intervention failed to stop the ruble from falling to all-time lows in October, the central bank decided to switch to a free float from Nov. 10.