Every one on US Crisis - What about Russia ?

While everyone are looking at US from and around the world , there is a silent financial crisis erupting in Russia.

The 2008 Russian financial crisis is an ongoing crisis on Russian markets, as nervousness over the global banking crisis has been compounded by political fears after the war with Georgia, as well as renewed concern about state intervention in corporations of strategic interests. Russia's economy is also heavily dependent on energy prices, especially oil which has lost more than a third of its value since its record peak of USD 147 on July 11, 2008

Russian stocks, already hurting before U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers ( went bankrupt and the Federal Reserve took over insurer AIG , have suffered heavy losses during a week of turmoil on world financial markets, while its banking system has run alarmingly short of cash.

July 24 - Mechel's stock plunged by almost 38 percent on July 24, 2008 after Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin criticized its CEO Igor Zyuzin, and accused the company of selling resources to Russia at higher prices than those charged to foreign countries

July 25 - On the following day, Mechel issued a contrite statement promising full cooperation with federal authorities, while share values rebounded by nearly 15 percent. Presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich also sought to restore calm on July 28, declaring that all parties would "act in a civilized way," and confirming that Mechel was cooperating with antitrust authorities.Just hours later, however, Putin announced that Mechel had been avoiding taxes, by using foreign subsidiaries to sell its products internationally. His renewed attack caused share prices to tumble once more—this time by almost 33 percent

September 16 - Russia's most liquid stock exchange MICEX and the dollar-denominated RTS were suspended trade for one hour after the worst one-day fall in 10 years as Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin reassured markets there was no "systemic" crisis.

September 17 - Trading was suspended for the second day in succession on Russia's two main stock exchanges (the MICEX and the dollar-denominated RTS) after shares fell dramatically, forcing the central bank in Moscow to intervene.
Russia's government lend the country's three biggest banks, Sberbank, VTB Bank and Gazprombank, as much as 1.13 trillion rubles ($44 billion) for at least three months to boost liquidity.

"If this crisis develops into something more serious that perhaps weakens Russia's financial position and weakens the economy, then it would obviously weaken Russia overall and have an impact on its political leverage, and Russia would perhaps become more dependent on the rest of the world," said UralSib's Weafer