"President Vladimir Putin banned all Russian residents from transferring hard currency abroad, including for servicing foreign loan contracts, potentially putting much of the country’s $478 billion in external debt at risk of default."
Huh. Well that would probably explain why so many countries are looking to stop this conflict before Russia puts itself into so much war debt that repaying all the other lenders becomes impossible. I have no doubt that world leaders are sympathetic to Ukraine's plight (and they should be), but I'm pretty sure that first and foremost they're thinking about themselves and the bottom line as far as what this thing is going to cost their countries.
What a mess, what a mess.
LOL.. this is a complete meltdown... before the oil prices crashed in 2014, the exchange rate was like 1 USD = 30 RUR. Now it is 1 USD = 105 RUR. I have sympathy for anyone who holds his savings in RUR. Pension funds, savings accounts.etc become worthless if being held in the Ruble.
Man, I hope pension funds and retirement accounts are sticking to the stock and bond markets instead of dabbling in foreign currency (especially Russia's). But I bet there's a lot of currency traders who are making a killing on this--and also a lot who are losing their shirts.