"Kazakhstan has been affected, [the post-Soviet country of] Georgia has been affected because remittances have been reduced, Armenia has been affected," co-founder of Firebird LLC Ian Hague, told Sputnik Wednesday.
There are a couple of European banks that have relatively large components of their business in Russia, Hague, whose company manages four private funds that invest in Eastern Europe, said.
“This certainly hurts them but they were in trouble anyway,” he added said, adding that a certain impact of Russia's recent economic problems can be seen at the level of companies, such as Apple, which has suspended its online store in Russia due to the ruble's fluctuation.
Keith Savard, senior managing economist at the Milken Institute, California-based economic think tank, agreed that the decline of Russia’s economy would not have a significant impact on the United States.
The analyst argued that Russia’s currency depreciation was the "natural outcome" of the country's oil dependency.
“They're [Russia] trying to manage it [currency depreciation] through interest rates and sometimes intervention in the foreign exchange market,” Savard said.
He pointed out that the fist of interest rates slows the economy, which is already having the effect of deteriorating terms of trade on oil prices.
Ian Hague noted that that the Central Bank's decision was correct but overdue.
The ruble has lost half its value against the dollar since July, prompting the Central Bank to hike interest rates to 17 percent, after increasing it from 9.5 to 10.5 percent the week before. The interest rate hike is the largest single increase that Moscow has experienced since its 1998 economic crisis.
