MOSCOW, October 21. /TASS/. The Russian stock indexes are falling on the Moscow Stock Exchange on Tuesday after news of the death of the French oil giant Total’s CEO and ahead of Russia-Ukraine gas talks.

As of 11:02 a.m. Moscow time (07:02 GMT), the ruble-denominated MICEX stock index fell by 0.63% to 1,367.64 points while the dollar-denominated RTS index declined by 0.65% to 1,049.88 points.

The Russian stock market opened in negative territory following deterioration in external markets and under the impact of the death of Total CEO Christophe de Margerie in an air crash at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport on Monday night.

Experts says there are currently no factors that could spur a growth on the Russian stock markets while market players will stay uncertain ahead of the upcoming gas talks between Russia and Ukraine with the EU’s mediation in Brussels on Tuesday and the possibility of Russia’s rating downgrade by Standard & Poor’s on October 24.

World markets will watch quarterly financial statements by Coca-Cola, Harley-Davidson and McDonalds and digest US data on secondary home sales in September, as well as the Internet search engine Yahoo’s financial report.

Results of previous trading on Russian markets

The Russian equities market closed lower on Monday on the lack of positive news from external markets. The MICEX index fell by 0.6% on Monday’s close to 1,376.36 points while the RTS index lost 1.51%, declining to 1,056.71 points.

The Russian ruble fell by 30 kopecks against the US dollar to 41.05 and by 57 kopecks against the euro to 52.57.