MOSCOW — Russian consumers flocked to the stores Wednesday, frantically buying a range of big-ticket items before prices soar due to the staggering fall in the value of the ruble in recent days. Alyona Korsuntseva, a shopper at IKEA in her 30s, said the current jitters surrounding the Russian economy reminded her of the 1998 Russian crisis when the ruble tumbled following the government’s default on sovereign bonds. Earlier this week, the ruble suffered catastrophic losses as traders continued to fret over the combined impact of low oil prices and Western sanctions over Russia’s involvement in Ukraine’s crisis. [...] Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev said the government will sell foreign currency from its own reserves “as much as necessary and as long as necessary.” [...] the Central Bank announced an expanded series of measures to help calm the situation such as giving banks more freedom to increase interest rates on retail deposits and offering them more flexibility to deal with the ruble’s depreciation on their balance sheets. Neil Shearing, chief emerging markets economist at London-based Capital Economics, said the “authorities have at last started to develop a strategy for containing the effects of the ruble’s collapse.”

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