Thumpers---even with growing sanctions and dropping oil prices, the ruble is strong.
Paddy Hirsch ’22, economic commentator, journalist, non-fiction author, April 5, “How Russia rescued the ruble”, https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/04/05/1090920442/how-russia-rescued-the-ruble] calista
Russia said last week that it wants the European countries that buy its natural gas to make their payments in rubles, rather than dollars or euros. A month ago, that might have seemed like a pretty good deal: The ruble was down 40%, at 139 rubles to the dollar, in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Since that low point on March 7, however, the Russian ruble has staged a dramatic recovery. At the time of this writing, it was trading at 84 to the dollar, which is right back where it was at the time of the invasion. And this is no dead cat bounce. It's a sharp and sustained recovery that made the ruble the world's top-performing currency in March.