MOSCOW, Nov 29 (Reuters) - The Russian rouble was stable

on Friday, the day after the central bank stopped foreign

currency purchases and President Vladimir Putin said there was

no need to panic about the fall of the Russian currency in

recent days.

By 0830 GMT the rouble was 0.2% weaker at 107.8 against the

U.S. dollar, according to data from banks, still at the lowest

level since March 2022, the first month of the Ukraine war but

above the level of 114.4 it had hit on Nov. 27.

Putin had said there was no need to panic about the fall of

the rouble, and that its sometimes sharp fluctuations were

related to budget payments and seasonal shifts.

Putin's statement followed a decision by the central bank

not to buy foreign currency on the domestic market from Nov. 28

until the end of the year.

"Judging by trading volumes, it (the central bank's

decision) has noticeably reduced nervousness. We expect a

gradual normalisation of the situation and a decrease in

volatility," PSB analyst Ebgeny Loktykhov said.

Putin and other officials have sought to spread calm through

Russian financial markets since the rouble's fall with some

blaming the slump on the global strength of the dollar following

the U.S. election.

But analysts and economists attribute it in part to rising

geopolitical tensions and new U.S. sanctions on Gazprombank,

which handles payments for Russia's energy trade with Europe and

is the major supplier of Western currencies to the market.

The rouble was up 0.2% at 14.69 against China's yuan, the

most traded foreign currency in Russia after Western sanctions

against the Moscow Stock Exchange (MOEX) stopped all exchange

trade in dollars and euros.

One-day rouble-dollar futures on MOEX, the only publicly

available trading quote for the dollar rate, were down 0.3% at

108.24. The central bank set the official exchange rate to the

U.S dollar at 109.58.