Russia's "Baa1" sovereign investment grade credit rating is unlikely to be negatively affected by its war with Georgia, Moody's Investors Service told Reuters on Tuesday.
Of greater concern for Moody's Sovereign credit analyst Jonathan Schiffer is the treatment of foreign investors, joint-venture holders and the commercial law environment.
In a telephone interview, Schiffer highlighted that Russia holds close to $600 billion in foreign currency reserves and less than $45 billion in outstanding sovereign debt.
"If you have numbers like this it would really take a lot more than what happened in Georgia to make us take a look at the credit rating, to put in doubt whether or not they could pay their debt. It doesn't look like they are going to have much of a problem," he said.
The conflict erupted when Tbilisi tried to retake the pro-Moscow separatist region of South Ossetia, which threw off Georgian rule in the 1990s. Russia responded with a counter-attack that overwhelmed Georgian forces.
On Tuesday Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow now recognizes the two rebel regions of Georgia as independent states, a move quickly condemned by the United States, a key ally of Tbilisi.
What concerns Schiffer more about Russia's rating is the impact on capital flows longer-term from the way Moscow uses its anti-monopoly and commercial laws and the treatment of joint-venture partners.
He cited Moody's rolling three- to five-year time horizon when evaluating sovereign credit ratings and characterized the fighting in Georgia as a short-term factor.
But recent big outflows of capital from Russia, even ahead of the Georgia conflict, raised warning flags for investors and analysts like Schiffer.
Investors have grown more cautious about investing in Russia after coal company Mechel was fiercely attacked, twice, by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in July over the company's pricing policy. This triggered a sell-off that erased $8 billion, or half the New York-listed company's market value, in the space of three days.
The current power struggle at joint-venture oil company TNK-BP, which pits the British-led management against four Russia-connected billionaires who own half the company, is also being closely watched by foreigners. The two sides are at loggerheads over management and strategy.
TNK-BP Chief Executive Robert Dudley is managing Russia's third-largest oil producer from overseas, having left Russia in July citing harassment. He has since been banned by a Moscow court from working in the country for two years.
"Those are the kinds of things which might influence capital flows and might influence domestic investors and investments over the medium to long-term," said Schiffer.
"Therefore, such factors are probably of more consequence to us than a very dramatic but probably short-term geopolitical event such as we are observing in Georgia," he said.