VEDOMOSTI
- The decision by Russia's central bank to cut its main interest rate to 15 percent from 17 percent will hardly help the economy, according to analysts.
- Gazprom will have to look to small companies to build the Power of Siberia pipeline as Arkady Rotenberg's Stroygazmontazh and Gennady Timchenko's Stroytransgaz have been hit by sanctions over the crisis in Ukraine.
- The Economy Ministry forecasts a 3 percent fall in the economic development in 2015.
- The government has assessed the cost of building a bridge across the Kerch Strait to Crimea at 228.3 billion roubles ($3.27 billion). It should be finished by December 2018 and each day's delay could cost Arkady Rotenberg's Stroygazmontazh, which is in charge of the project, 2 million roubles ($28,618) as a fine, the daily says.
- More than 25 percent of Russians believe in the possibility of a war between Russia and Ukraine, according to VTsIOM's latest survey.
KOMMERSANT
www.kommersant.ru
- The collapse of the global oil market will cost Russia 2.35 trillion roubles in budget losses which could lead to the budget deficit worth 3.8 percent of GDP, according to economy ministry forecast.
- Russia's hopes of persuading China and India to form a bloc as an alternative to the current system of international relations amount to utopia, according to experts.
- Five of the 40 companies united in Rusimport, one of Russia's oldest importers of alcohol and the second biggest importer of French wines, have applied for bankruptcy as a result of result of the rouble's decline.
ROSSIISKAYA GAZETA
www.rg.ru
- The daily publishes the government's anti-crisis plan of measures to ensure stable economic development in 2015.
- Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has banned men from the age of 18 to 60 leaving the country, the daily says.
IZVESTIA
www.izvestia.ru
- Russia's Space Agency has decided not to import Zenit rocket boosters from Ukraine's Yuzhmash and will send satellites into orbit with the Angara system, according to Russian space officials.
NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA
www.ng.ru
- Russia's government has failed to work out an adequate budget for 2015 because it was not ready for the changes that have happened on the oil market. Ministers kept talking about the impossibility of the price falling lower than $100 a barrel even as it started to fall, the daily says.
($1 = 69.8870 roubles) (Reporting By Tatiana Ustinova)