Russia's gross international reserves (GIR), including gold, continue to creep upwards and reached $487.1bn as of March 22 – enough to cover Russia's external debt dollar for dollar in cash.

In February during his state of the nation speech President Vladimir Putin boasted that for the first time Russia has enough money in its reserves to cover all its external debt with cash.

At the end of the last quarter of 2018 Russia had an external debt of $453.7bn and the debt has been falling steadily over the twelve months as the government makes use of the windfall from rising oil prices and falling expenditures to pay off more debt early.

Russia already had one of the lowest levels of debt of any major country in the world. While most western countries have debt to GDP ratios well over the Maastricht rules recommended maximum of 60% (and some like Italy are well over 100%), Russia's debt to GDP ratio has been hovering around 15% for years.

At the start of 2016 Russia's external debt was $520bn and it rose to a high of $537bn in the third quarter of 2017, but it began to taper off quickly as 2018 got underway.