Ruble leads world currencies in gains against dollar. That’s cutting into revenues for Russian exporters and the state budget.
The Russian ruble was the world’s best-performing currency against the U.S. dollar in the second quarter of 2026, the Bloomberg news agency reported.
Since early April, the ruble has gained roughly 12% against the dollar, reaching 72.6 rubles per dollar — a level last seen in early 2023.
Bloomberg attributed the appreciation to higher foreign currency revenues from oil sales, driven by the war in the Middle East and a resulting fuel crisis.
For the second year running, the ruble has defied official forecasts predicting devaluation, Bloomberg said, leading some analysts to conclude it is overvalued.
A strong ruble, the agency wrote, increasingly looks like a structural feature of the modern Russian economy — the product of financial market imbalances created by sanctions and Russia’s tight monetary policy, which is designed to offset the costs of the war in Ukraine.
Russia’s economy is largely export-oriented, so an overly strong national currency can pose a problem. A strong ruble slows economic growth: government revenues from exports decline, and domestic goods become less competitive compared to cheaper imports.
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