Russia halts trading on stock exchange

MK says the Kremlin’s response so far is heavy handed and the government is responding as if the response to the stock can be given by KGB officers. I believe they’re behaving non-professionally and don’t know what to do. (Explain more of what you hear is happening? Are these decisions made by Medvedev or Putin?) Putin is making the decisions and Medvedev is responsible for foreign policy. The Moscow scene is at the disposal of residents, local speculators�they lack trust in the credit ability of Russian banks and in the investment climate in Russia as a whole. (Is there a chance that Russian banks will fail?) I think the prime Russian banks will avoid bankruptcy but the second-rate banks could collapse. (Connect this to collapses historically.) There is some comparison and now people tend to trust statements of the government because of how they lied or mislead from previous examples. (Officials in Russia are pointing fingers at the U.S. Do you see any sign that this is the case?) Yes, this is the case. Medvedev and Putin said so outright. (What do you say to that?) I think it is, the connectoin is there but the main fault is with the Russian government which has made the investment climate in Russia quite risky. As soon as the situation becomes dangerous for speculators, the economy collapses. Foreign companies do not have rights to participate in the evolution of economic systems in Russia. (So why would the government act this way?) They confuse economic and political goals. The value of our reserves is becoming more expansive so we’re restraining the expansion of our resources for the sake of driving up prices.