The ruble has lost almost 40% of its value against the dollar this year Getty Images Plummeting oil has dragged Russia’s ruble to record lows against the dollar this week. The nosedive in the Russian currency has led analysts to speculate that intervention by the Central Bank of Russia to help stave off further carnage is almost inevitable. The embattled ruble has lost nearly 40% of its value against the dollar so far this year — and 8% in the past week alone, as oil prices have mostly been in free fall. Most recently, the ruble traded at USDRUB, +1.23% 54.10 rubles to the U.S. dollar, its second all-time low in two days, after the Russian Economy Ministry said that the country’s gross domestic product is expected to contract by 0.8% in 2015. Last month, its losses forced the Russian Central Bank to abandon its policy of market intervention and allow the ruble to float freely on the open market. But now, traders are smelling blood in the water, and are attempting to call the central bank’s bluff, said Matt Weller, senior technical analyst at Forex.com, meaning that currency speculators are placing financial bets that the ruble will fall further. So far, that has been lucrative endeavor. Speculators see the extreme volatility in the ruble as an opportunity to squeeze out profits, and won’t stop pushing the currency lower until the central bank pushes back. Before the central bank changed its policy, the ruble was managed — meaning that the central bank would only allow it to move within a limited band each day. The Russian central bank kept the ruble’s value in check by purchasing or selling rubles to control price fluctuations. But, the central bank has reduced its daily cash injections to $350 million a day, about one-eighth the size of its previous interventions, said Kathleen Brooks, an analyst with Forex.com, in a research note Friday. “It appears that the massive move of the ruble might be doing more damage [to the Russian economy] than previous interventions from the Russian central bank,” Weller said. Adding pressure to the currency are macroeconomic factors including the growing strength of the U.S. dollar and stunning decline in value of what of its main key exports. Given that scenario, even a bailout of the currency by the CBR may do little to stanch the ruble’s bleeding. “The [Central Bank of Russia] has a difficult task to rebalance the Ruble. Unless commodity prices reverse, or demand for the [U.S. dollar] weakens substantially, any attempts at currency intervention will likely continue to have a limited impact,” said Jameel Ahmad, chief market analyst for Forex Time, in a research note Tuesday. Joseph Adinolfi