According to Reuters, Russia is abandoning its increasingly expensive battle to prop up the tumbling ruble:
The rouble tumbled on Wednesday after Russia's central bank effectively abandoned the trading corridor for the currency, halting the multi-billion dollar daily interventions that had propped it up through sanctions and plunging oil revenues.
The bank announced it would limit daily interventions to just $350 million a day, saying this would mean the currency's price would now largely be set by the market, although it stopped short of formally abolishing the trading corridor.
The rouble, which has already lost almost a quarter of its value since the middle of this year, fell sharply, briefly reaching 45 roubles per dollar in late trade, its record-lowest. At 1550 GMT, the rouble was down 2.4 percent against the dollar at 44.67.
Plunging oil prices and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis have shrivelled Russia's exports and investment inflows, driving the currency down. Moscow had already officially planned to float its currency at the end of this year, but now appears to have been forced by its worsening finances to unmoor the currency sooner than planned.
A rapid fall in the rouble could be a political setback for President Vladimir Putin, who remains hugely popular despite the imposition of Western sanctions over his policy of seizing territory from neighbouring Ukraine and supporting rebels there.
Russian activist denied entry to Ukraine:
A Russian human rights activist has been prevented from entering Ukraine.
The Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center said on November 5 that Ukrainian border guards did not allow Vitaly Ponomaryov to pass through passport control at the airport in the western city of Lviv on November 4.
Ponomaryov arrived in Lviv to attend November 6 court hearings on the cases of two Russian citizens who applied for asylum in Ukraine.
Border guards told Ponomaryov that his name was added to the list of Russian citizens barred from entering Ukraine. No more information was given.
Just in from Donetsk by AFP:
Two civilians including a teenage boy were killed on Wednesday when shelling hit a school playing field in east Ukraine's rebel-held Donetsk, an AFP journalist said.
Journalists saw two corpses covered by tarpaulin in the location close to the disputed airport in the city and witnesses said that at least four more people were wounded.