Capital flight is becoming a very big problem in Russia these days, and has sparked some very high level intervention and official warnings. This bit comes from the Wall Street Journal MarketBeat blog:

Officials in the country, in an attempt to defend the falling ruble and maintain some capital flows, raised interest rates overnight by a full percentage point to 12%, as it deals with declining foreign currency reserves, capital outflows and short-term debt issues among some of the nation’s largest investors. Is raising rates a smart decision? The rationale behind it would be to attempt to prop up the currency, which is declining in part because of the rapid slide in oil prices, which has caused investors to worry about the country’s capital and current-account positions, which until recently had been quite strong.