Sofya Donets, chief economist at Renaissance Capital, said the ruble recovery has been aided by an unprecedented trade surplus amid high energy prices.
Oil and gas, Russia’s main exports, keep flowing abroad, filling Russia’s coffers.
The United States has banned Russian oil imports and the EU adopted a ban on Russian steel imports but those penalties have largely spared key Russian exports.
“It only affects five percent of Russian exports, so it’s not that much,” said Donets.
Robust exports have been supplemented by harsh capital controls introduced by the central bank.
The West froze some $300 billion of Russia’s foreign currency reserves abroad, a move that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has described as “theft”.
To counter the sanctions, exporting companies were forced to sell 80 percent of their export earnings to buy rubles.
Russians have also been barred from withdrawing more than $10,000 in foreign currency or taking more than that amount out of the country, and foreign investors have been banned from selling Russian assets.
Late Friday the central bank relaxed some curbs, saying that from April 18 it was scrapping the ban on buying dollars and euros introduced in early March.
The rapid ruble recovery does not equal a strong economy, however, analysts said.
Economists believe that the worst economic impact of the sanctions is still to come and expect Russia, which has relied heavily on imports of manufacturing equipment and consumer goods, to plunge into a deep recession.
