I can’t confirm all of these rumors as fact at this point, but well informed friends from Moscow have been calling me all morning with news that major announcements by Russia’s financial authorities will be made early this week in attempt to staunch what has been up until now an under-reported level of capital flight moving out of Russia. These announcements, my sources tell me, may involve restrictions on money movements and possible ruble intervention.

The changes are said to mirror the fairly draconian measures which have already been implemented by Ukrainian financial authorities over the past week such as bans on withdrawals, controls over lending, and talk of bank nationalizations.

We have known for some time that the use of the word “crisis” has become completely taboo in the state media. Despite reports we have published from Grigory Pasko about difficulties withdrawing cash from ATMs in Moscow, as well as other anecdotal evidence from Russians I work in with on Moscow that cash is frequently scarce at various bank machines, the official line has been to deny, deny, and deny. On Sept. 15, President Dmitry Medvedev confidently declared “Despite all the global economic problems there are today, the situation in our economy is on the whole completely stable. We definitely have no crisis or pre-crisis situation.“

Last 5 posts by Robert Amsterdam

• Grigory Pasko: Journalists Are Fleeing Russia - November 20th, 2009
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