From RFE/RL's News Desk:
Russia will use some money initially meant for pensions to maintain an anticrisis fund that could help companies hit by Western sanctions.
The United States and European Union have restricted Russian companies' access to capital markets in hopes of persuading the Kremlin to change its behavior in Ukraine.
Companies including state oil giant Rosneft have asked the government for help.
RIA Novosti news agency cited Finance Minister Anton Siluanov as saying on September 15 that a decision to stop transferring money to the pension fund would hand the budget an extra 309 billion rubles ($8.18 billion) in 2015.
He said some money initially destined for the pension fund and some left over from this year's budget would be used for an anticrisis fund that will contain at least 100 billion rubles ($2.65 billion).
"This...will allow us to help our companies," Siluanov was quoted as saying.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Valeriy Heletey speaking on Sunday at a news conference in Kyiv about what he says is the delivery of arms to Ukraine by unspecified NATO nations:
"We were reaching agreements in closed talks [with Western allies], without media, about about weapons we currently need. Please understand me, I cannot disclose any specific country we have reached agreements with. Nevertheless, the fact is that those weapons are already on their way to us. That's absolutely true, I can officially tell you."
"We need the kind of weapons that would stop [Russian President Vladimir] Putin [from advancing into Ukraine]. If that's a multiple missile rocket-launch system -- without telling you the details about those weapons, then we need to know that if a rocket is launched in our direction that we are capable in a matter of seconds to get our rocket launched against them in response. If this kind of answer suffices, then I can say that this is the sort of weaponry we are talking about."