DEC 15, 2014 12:35 PM EST
By Leonid Bershidsky

Both the Russian government and the broader markets have seized on the decline in oil prices to explain the rapid drop in the ruble's value. Yet it now appears that the actions of the Russian Central Bank and other financial institutions may be playing a more important role than oil.

Consider what happened today: Oil bounced back on news of supply disruptions in Libya, even as the the ruble plummeted, losing 2.8 percent of its value against the dollar:

If, as a top Russian Central Bank official told me last week in Moscow, the relationship between the currency and oil was universally accepted -- built into trading algorithms, for example -- the ruble should have appreciated along with the oil price.

It would be easy to dismiss the divergence as an anomaly, yet evidence emerged Friday to support the counter-narrative.

Russia's state-owned oil company, Rosneft, raised 625 billion rubles ($10.8 billion at that day's exchange rate) with a bond issue that had a lower yield than Russian government bonds of similar maturity. The Central Bank quickly added the bonds to the list of securities it would accept as collateral from banks seeking liquidity. The deal was opaque, and it's not clear who bought the bonds or how Rosneft would use the proceeds. There are, however, three distinct possibilities for what could happen now:

First, the banks that bought the Rosneft paper -- probably big state-owned ones -- could use the bonds as collateral to borrow foreign currency from the Central Bank, and then would provide the cash to Rosneft through a currency swap. That would allow the oil company to refinance a $6.88 billion loan from foreign banks. Under this scenario, however, the Central Bank would need to draw on its foreign reserves, which it doesn't want to deplete.

Second, Rosneft could invest the rubles in production. The company announced that it would distribute the money to several subsidiaries. Each, however, would get as much as the others, suggesting the money isn't earmarked for investment.

Third, Rosneft would use the rubles to buy dollars for debt repayment on the market. That, however, would severely erode the ruble's exchange rate.

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Central Bank technocrats have been worried that the government would force them to print rubles for the direct funding of industries, primarily the military industrial complex and the state companies run by Putin friends. The Central Bank's obvious complicity in the Rosneft deal means the pressure is on, and the Central Bank is caving. It cannot prevent the funds loaned to corporations in special deals such as Rosneft's from destabilizing the currency and fueling market panic. Besides, the Rosneft deal sends a clear signal to market players that some of them are more equal than the others. That is a sure way to foster distrust and send the ruble into a speculative tailspin regardless of what happens to the oil price.

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