TODAY: State-owned companies may be banned from holding foreign bank accounts; Putin revokes possibility of sending troops into Ukraine; ceasefire in doubt after more deaths in eastern Ukraine, Kiev says Russia using landmines; Moldova optimistic on European cooperation; row with Israel over RT raid. 

The Finance Ministry is planning to ban state companies from holding accounts with foreign banks and confine their assets to Russian-owned banks; this piece says the paperwork is already being prepared, whilst Reuters says the idea is merely ‘lingering’ and that analysts are skeptical as such a move would damage the investment climate. The MICEX hit its 2014 high yesterday after President Vladimir Putin reversed an earlier Kremlin ruling that Russia could take its troops into Ukrainian territory, thus formally abandoning the possibility of military intervention.  The Moscow Times called it ‘an ostentatious demonstration of goodwill’.  Nonetheless, the mutual ceasefire is in question after pro-Russian insurgents shot down an army helicopter in eastern Ukraine, killing nine soldiers, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko responded by threatening to abandon the agreement.  Kiev has accused Russian troops of planting landmines on its territory during the annexation of Crimea.  Is Russia using soft power in France?