Is Russia's central bank guilty of sabotage?

It's getting ugly in Russia.

Forget plunging oil prices or nasty Western sanctions -- apparently the country's central bank is to blame for the crisis now slowly strangling the economy.

A senior member of President Vladimir Putin's party has accused the Bank of Russia of engineering the collapse of the ruble. The bank is now being investigated by state prosecutors as a result.

Yevgeny Fyodorov, who chairs the Russian parliament's economic policy committee, accused the central bank of sabotage, telling local media that it was "an institutional enemy of the country."

The bank's "crime" is failing to prevent the ruble from plunging about 37% against the dollar in the last six months -- despite spending tens of billions of foreign currency reserves trying to prop it up.

It intervened in the market again this week, buying another 36.9 billion rubles ($700 million) on Monday in its first such move since allowing the currency to float freely in November.

Russia's economy was already beginning to seize up earlier this year as Western sanctions chilled investment and raised funding costs for government, banks and businesses.

The crisis has sparked a flight of capital -- some $120 billion is expected to leave the country this year. Another $80 billion could follow in 2015.

Russia has taken another big knock recently from the sharp fall in oil prices. Revenues from oil and gas make up nearly half the Russian state budget.

(CNN)

ANN.Az