Russian ruble against the U.S. dollar. A 6.5 percentage point interest rate rise to 17 percent failed to prevent the currency hitting record lows in a "perfect storm" of low oil prices, looming recession and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis. Russian ruble The Russian ruble or rouble ( "rublʹ", plural: "rubli"; sign: ₽, руб; code: RUB) is the currency of the Russian Federation, the two partially recognised republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the two unrecognised republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The ruble is subdivided into 100 "kopeks" (sometimes written as "kopecks" or "copecks"; "kopeyka", plural: "kopeyki"). The ruble was
A Russian Diary under Vladimir Putin reverted into an authoritarian society centered around the ruler. The book has three parts. The initial section covers the Russian legislative election, 2003 and the Russian presidential election, 2004. The following section discusses the insurgency of the Second Chechen War, the Beslan school siege and its consequences, and other events in the second Putin term. She recalled a meeting with Ramzan Kadyrov, Head of the Chechen Republic. The last section describes 2005 pensioner protests. Robert Legvold of "Foreign Affairs" wrote, "The tragedies generated by the Chechen war are what she knew best and wrote, knifelike, about". Bridget