MOSCOW, Reuters – On Wednesday the Russian central bank reported that there was a liquidity shortfall of 6.9 trillion roubles (or $68.25 billion). This is an increase from 5.4 trillion roubles a single day earlier as more people withdraw money.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, the United States and the European Union have imposed harsh sanctions on Moscow. These economic sanctions have impacted the ruble and encouraged people to withdraw their cash from banks.

Two repo auctions were held Tuesday by the central bank to provide banks with $70bn in rouble liquidity. On Thursday, it will add 6 billion roubles through repo and deposit auctions.

According to the bank, Russian banks owe 9.6 trillion rubles in total, as of Wednesday. This is up from 8.2 billion roubles per day earlier.

Russia describes its actions against Ukraine as “special operation”, which it claims is not intended to occupy any territory. Instead, it wants to disarm its neighbour’s military capabilities to capture and destroy what it considers dangerous nationalists.

Russia’s central banks has doubled their main lending rate from 20% to 20% over the past week to try to help the currency and bring some money back into the bank accounts.

($1 = 101.1000 roubles)