Will .ru domain help a Russian ranking?

Do we even need a .ru domain?

[Ranger]

Hi Folks:

We just assisted in the translation of one of our client sites into Russian (well, at least we *think* we did...thankfully the client hired the translator). The Russian site now sits in a sub-directory of the main english site:
www.clientsite.com/russian

We're looking into having a contact in Russia buy an .ru domain, and parking that over the sub-directory. What I'm wondering is, will that help in the Russian SE rankings in any way?

Is there any other reason to do it, or not to do it?

[Ove]

I would say yes.

Generelly the local machines are giving a local in this case .ru a bigger boost for searches in russia. But searches in world it does not matter.

/Ove

[heini]

I'd say go for it Ranger.
The possibilities to promote will be much better with a local TLD.
I would however look very hard into the domain ownership matters - having full control over a domain, especially in a far away country domain is essential.