the move, or lack of a move, goes against many analysts expectations as russia struggles to tame rising inflation fueled by its war economy and western sanctions. let's have a quick look at the numbers. the main interest rate has been held at 21% — the highest on record, which the central bank put in place in october, in an effort to tame persistently high inflation, which rose again last month, coming in atjust under 9% in the year to november. all of which is putting huge pressure on the economy as prices hit consumers and high interest rates strangle growth. during president putin's end of year press conference on thursday, he described the growth in prices as an "unpleastant and bad thing", but that the economy will cope. but for how long? joining me now is chris weafer.

he's the ceo of macro—advisory limited. what is driving russian inflation and why have they decided to hold rates? first of all you could say that it is excessively high, even relative to the inflation rates, but the central banker said that when it raised the rates that the justification is they are fair that inflation could spike a lot higher next year because of what they called an overheated consumer economy. we have seen a rapid increase in consumer spending this year, some of which caused by higher wages. a lot of it is because of declining workforce,

unemployment is down to 2.3%. wages have been rising by over 10% this year in real terms. we have seen we have seen rises in expenses of expensive —— rises in expensive goods like cars. the central bank says this could lead to higher inflation next year. they said the reason for the high rate is to prove that. in november, it seems that. in november, it seems that was starting to work. car sales were down from 180,000 units in october to 100,000 units in october to 100,000 units in october to 100,000 units in november. they say that their strategy is now working and therefore they don't need to raise rates further. 0f don't need to raise rates further. of course, they will keep the option open. the other recently have not raised the rates as they have faced fierce criticism from big state companies and industry groups, all of whom are saying that the high cost of debt servicing,

the high cost of borrowing is putting a lot of companies under pressure. we have seen an increase in failure rates among small companies in particular that are struggling with high debts and also saying it is affecting investment plans for next year as companies can't borrow. a, next year as companies can't borrow. �* ., ., . ~' next year as companies can't borrow. ., ., ., borrow. a lot to take and therefore _ borrow. a lot to take and therefore our _ borrow. a lot to take and therefore our viewers. i borrow. a lot to take and - therefore our viewers. economic growth is expected to drop next year. there is a canute —— consumer economy there, also real estate in agriculture. there are sanctions being put on companies, the russian energy giant gazprom is set to be hit with sanctions in a few hours. also the question of whether the cost of food rising, the cost of transport going up will affect the economy in a way that will encourage president putin to end the war. people will be wondering if the two are linked. i wondering if the two are linked. ~' wondering if the two are linked. ~ ., linked. i think coming into 2025 you _ linked. i think coming into 2025 you can _ linked. i think coming into 2025 you can definitely . linked. i think coming into | 2025 you can definitely link

the economy perhaps with what might happen geopolitically. despite the defiance that you would expect from political leaders everywhere, in europe as well as in russia, there is still a growing sense of war fatigue. part of this is driven by the fact that the economy is now becoming more difficult. growth in 2024 will be around 4%, which is a pretty good number globally, but it is running into a more sluggish face. growth next year will be around 2%. also the government is starting to scale back spending on other areas, non—military areas of the economy. there is a sense that it is time for the water and to start hopefully bringing down sanctions and to start rebuilding the economy. these factors are adding to it. as

she heard yesterday from president putin, he mentioned inflation. inflation is one of the factors that he over the last 25 years has consistently referred to as a cause of concern. he does not like the fact that inflation is rising because it may undermine public support for the kremlin, for him, for the regime. inflation control is the number one fear of the government and has been for the last quarter of a century. for the last quarter of a century-— for the last quarter of a century. for the last quarter of a centu . ., ~ ,, , . century. thank you very much for taking _ century. thank you very much for taking us _ century. thank you very much for taking us through - century. thank you very much for taking us through all - century. thank you very much for taking us through all of. for taking us through all of that. the uk's next ambassador to the us is expected to be lord mandelson. the labour grandee is a former cabinet minister under prime minister tony blair and has also served as the european trade commissioner. he will replace dame karen pierce, whose term in washington dc is due to end early next year. former uk government trade advisor allie renison told me what personal qualities mandelson would bring to the special relationship.

i think ultimately one of the biggest differences between lord mandelson and previous, you know, sort of ambassadors to the united states is that ultimately he is a political beast. he understands politics. he is not a diplomat by training. so he understands sort of the political nuances that are needed to engage with a whole range of stakeholders in washington. and i think one of the most important things that he brings, in terms of his ability to talk to both washington, of course, but also, i think, to reassure brussels in terms of his past european trade commissioner experience is that he's able to triangulate, i think, between the us and the eu, because we know that washington, undertrump 2.0, as it were, is a little bit worried about is this eu reset that the prime minister, keir starmer, wants to do, going to bring it too close to brussels and conversely, i think reassure brussels that it is not drawing too close to washington in a way that would offset that relationship.

but so do you think lord mandelson�*s track record as an eu trade commissioner might actually make donald trump a bit more suspicious of him? i think he will certainly have nigel farage in his ear telling him that. but i think one of lord mandelson�*s greatest skills is the ability to, quite frankly, talk out of both sides of his mouth. and i say that not as a criticism, but more as a sort of skill set in terms of being able to reassure both trump at a political level, in terms of engagement and also brussels. so i think that triangulation sort of skill set that he has is quite important. allie renison there. well, as a good example of the kind of complexities in trade relations the world may find with the incoming trump administration, a short time ago donald trump put out a message pointed at the european union. in it he says the eu "must make up their tremendous deficit with the united states by the large scale purchase

of our oil and gas", otherwise, it is tariffs all the way! ! ! he added. for more i spoke to jane foley from rabobank — she said this might be welcome news to european manufacturers as — if implemented — it could lead to a drop in energy prices. europe knows that it is also there, that it is also vulnerable to the potential impact of tariffs. i think europe's or germany's auto manufacturers particularly worried about what might happen given their present weakened position. but in terms of the energy message that trump mentioned this morning, that's not entirely surprising. and in fact, perhaps it's a little bit of a relief, perhaps, to some of the manufacturers, that trump has decided to say that europe needs to import more lng, more liquid natural gas. now, we've got to bear in mind that a couple of years ago, when we had the energy crisis in europe, europe did ramp up the imports of us lng very significantly. it was very grateful for those supplies at the time. in fact, if you look at the first quarter of this year, about 47% of europe's gas or lng came from the us, and it's remained at those sorts of proportions all year.

so if trump does, for instance, boost more production of lng, what we could actually see is prices of energy falling, because probably in europe we may have already reached peak demand as we move towards more renewable sources of energy. the tech giant google is today expected to counter demands by the us department ofjustice that it sells chrome, the world's most popular web browser. that demand is one of a series of remedies aimed at stopping the tech giant from maintaining its monopoly in online search. i spoke to adam epsteen, co—ceo of admarketplace, and an advisor to the us department ofjustice antitrust team. and began by asking him what proposals google is expected to offer today.

they will see what google finally has a chance to speak after losing the 286 page liability decision in the last summer. so it will be anything from, you know, a choice screen option, which was unlikely to be effective or compelling to the judge, you know, all the way to offering to spin chrome out into its subsidiary in alphabet, which, again, you know, is sort ofjust changing the labels, but not really the structure of how things would operate. it will be interesting to see if google takes this opportunity to do something that would actually be meaningful and create competition and transparency and innovation in search, and that would be something along the lines of saying, hey, you know, we're going to go ahead and change how our licensing agreements work with our search ads, our search results, and allow these browsers and phones to really customise and curate their own search experiences on their own devices,

on their own pages, and create really differentiated and unique search experiences. that would be a step in the right direction. i think something that the courts and would find compelling and that would really serve users in the in the entire industry. so there's a bunch of options they have. and, you know, this will be their first chance to really speak about how they're looking to approach their future in search. if they're not successful, adam, do you think this could actually stop chrome being the most dominant web browser out there? yeah. we'll have a trial in the spring about how that the chrome divestiture would work. i think there's a lot of questions about, exactly who would buy it and how it operate and how it interact with with search. so there's certainly a possibility that you're going to see kind of browser war 3.0 kick off. chrome is in play. how exactly it all it all falls away and resolves i don't think is is a known factor at this point. so, that's what the trial will be about is to try to kind of sort through some of those those questions.

for now, that is all from business today.

hello from the bbc sport centre. southampton are expected to hire a new manager. your itch was sacked by roma after 12 games. he is 49, had an impressive three year spell in charge of torino. he is unlikely to be imposed for the match this weekend at fulham on sunday. tottenham manager ange postocoglou says at least ten senior players could be missing

for sunday's game against liverpool in the premier league after a make—shift spurs side beat manchester united in a seven—goal thriller to reach the semifinals of the english league cup. we self—inflicted some pain on ourselves then we had to scramble to, you know, get a foothold again. and ended up getting a fourth and winning the game. but, yeah, should have been a lot more comfortable than it ended up being. but having said that, i just can't get away from the fact that this group of players, they're just doing an unbelievable job at the moment to get us through this. tottenham meet liverpool on sunday in the premier league and that's who they're going to play in the semifinals of the league cup. across two legs, the first of which will be in north london in earlyjanuary, the second leg will be at anfield a month later. the other semifinal is between arsenal and newcastle with the first leg at the emirates.