Russian central bank provides banks with $23 billion at 3-day repo auction

MOSCOW – Russia’s central bank on Friday said it had provided banks with 1.9 trillion roubles ($22.87 billion) out of 3 trillion roubles on offer at a “fine-tuning”, three-day repo auction.

Seeking to maintain financial stability, the central bank started beefing up the banking sector with extra liquidity and selling foreign currency on the forex market after the rouble fell to all-time lows on Thursday after Moscow sent its troops into Ukraine.

($1 = 83.0650 roubles)

(Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya and Alexander Marrow; editing by Andrey Ostroukh)