Pressure is growing on Russia's central bank to adopt more radical measures to defend the tumbling rouble, such as interest rate rises, but there is no easy fix, Reuters reported in an analysis. The bank's board meets on Oct. 31 to discuss monetary policy and there is growing speculation it may soon raise rates to support the rouble, which is being hit by plunging oil prices and Western sanctions imposed over the Ukraine crisis. The bank says it is also weighing other measures, including long-term dollar loans to banks, as it tries to restore calm to markets.

The two biggest foreign banks in Russia have been heavily tapping the rouble bond market to replace funding from their parent companies in Europe as they rush to reduce their exposure to the country, the Financial Times reported. Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International and France’s Société Générale, which operate the two biggest foreign-owned bank branch networks in Russia, have both issued large amounts of rouble bonds for their Moscow-based operations in recent weeks.

Weeks after President Vladimir V. Putin annexed Crimea in March, an obscure regulatory board in Moscow known as the Market Council convened inside an office tower not far from the Kremlin to discuss the country’s wholesale electricity market. It is a colossal business, worth 2 percent of Russia’s gross domestic product, and a rich source of fees for the bank that had long held the exclusive right to service it.

The World Bank on Wednesday slashed its forecast for Russia's economy over the next two years, saying growth would stagnate amid a lack of structural reforms and Western sanctions over Russia's role in the Ukraine conflict, The Wall Street Journal reported. In its biannual report, the World Bank cut its forecast for Russian economic growth to 0.3% in 2015 and 0.4% in 2016 under its baseline scenario from 1.5% and 2.2%, respectively—well below the government's estimates.

Russia will remain committed to developing its market economy as the state offers billions of dollars of aid to help the country’s biggest companies weather sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe, Bloomberg News reported. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev met with business leaders to discuss state aid to cope with the strain as Russia’s economic slowdown is exacerbated by the sanctions, Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said today at an investment forum in the Black Sea city of Sochi, site of the Winter Olympics.

A planned $2bn deal between Rosneft and oil trader Vitol has been shelved, in the latest sign that tougher western sanctions are hampering the Russian state oil group’s ambitions, the Financial Times reported. Vitol, the world’s largest independent oil trader, had been in talks for several months to raise about $2bn from US and European banks to make an advance payment to Rosneft in exchange for future oil supplies. The talks were first reported by the FT in March.

Rosneft has asked the Russian government for as much as Rb1.5tn ($42bn) in support, in a clear sign of the growing cost of western sanctions against Moscow, the Financial Times reported. The Russian government will consider a request from Igor Sechin, the powerful head of Rosneft, to offset the impact of western restrictions against the state-owned company within the next two weeks, Arkady Dvorkovich, deputy prime minister, told journalists on Thursday.

Two Russian travel operators declared bankruptcy as sanctions over Ukraine weaken the ruble and curb demand for foreign travel, particularly among state employees, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Moscow-based Labirint suspended operations Aug. 2, while Intaer followed today, cutting off services to about 30,000 customers who bought trips to destinations including Greece, Turkey and Egypt, according to the Federal Tourism Agency.

The head of Russia's state development bank has ruled out taking part in a rescue of ailing miner Mechel, possibly making a rival government-promoted debt-for-equity deal involving creditors a more likely option to save the company, Reuters reported. Russia has been looking into ways to help Mechel, a coal-to-steel group with $8.6 billion in debt and 70,000 workers, for several months and has proposed two schemes, both involving a change in ownership.

An international court ruled that Russia owes shareholders of the now-defunct oil giant Yukos more than $50 billion for what it described as the Kremlin's "devious and calculated expropriation" of assets designed to bankrupt the firm, The Wall Street Journal reported. The compensation award is the largest the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has ever rendered, lawyers said. But it is only half what shareholders had sought, and any attempts to collect are expected to drag on for years.