Dear Jim: The Russian Ruble

is showing incredible strength. Could there be an ongoing attack to make it stronger and thereby make Russian gas cost more (since western countries must buy in Rubles)? Or are these just normal market forces with so many countries having to acquire Rubles in order to buy Russian gas&oil products -- that is probably more likely, that the Russian strategy of requiring countries to buy their products in Rubles is working and we are seeing in the price, a mad dash by countries to acquire Rubles. The initial estimates, based on Russia offering 5000 Rubles for a gram of gold, was that the Ruble would stabilize around 80 to the dollar (Ruble was much weaker, over 100 I believe, when Ukraine war began). And it did stay around 80 for a week or so, but then jumped to around 76, then couple days ago we saw a big jump in its value to about 72 to the dollar and this morning it's up over 4% to 67 to the dollar! Wow, those are big moves for a currency.

Pete