The Russian rouble opened slightly down on Wednesday, consolidating around the 88-to-the-dollar mark.

At 0715 GMT, the rouble was 0.38% weaker against the dollar at 88.20 and had lost 0.19% to trade at 95.82 versus the euro. It had shed 0.42% against the yuan to 12.17.

In a note, Alexei Antonov, head of investment consulting at Russia's Alor Broker, said the rouble looked strong in the short term, due to low seasonal demand for foreign currency from importers, as well as FX sales by Russia's central bank.

State FX sales, carried out by the central bank, are set to amount to the equivalent of 16.7 billion roubles ($189.35 million) of foreign currency a day until the end of January, after the finance ministry switched to making sales from purchases after December oil and gas revenue was lower than expected.

That, along with existing capital controls obliging exporters to convert foreign currency revenues, is supporting the rouble.

Brent crude oil, a global benchmark for Russia's main export, was down 0.84% at $77.63 a barrel.

Russian stock indexes were down slightly.

The dollar-denominated RTS index was down 0.60% to 1,134 points. The rouble-based MOEX Russian index was 0.09% lower at 3,177 points.

For Russian equities guide see

For Russian treasury bonds see ($1 = 88.1975 roubles) (Reporting by Felix Light; Editing by Andrew Heavens)