It's no surprise Russia is weathering the West's sanctions: Putin has been preparing for them for nearly a decade

• Russia has been preparing for sanctions for a long time.

• After the annexation, Moscow was hit by a number of sanctions.

• Russia has taken a number of measures to protect itself.

Since the West hit Russia with sanctions, economists have predicted an implosion of the economy. Russia has held up despite the war, with Putin announcing on June 7 that inflation has slowed and the unemployment rate has not changed.

Thanks to soaring oil prices, Russia is posting bumper sale revenues. Russia could be unaffected by sanctions in the near-term.

Veronica Carrion wrote in an ABA Banking Journal post on June 13 that Putin has "refashioned the Russian economy into a fortress" to weather shocks.

The reliability of Russian statistics has been questioned by some experts. Andrew Lohsen is a fellow in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Even if the economy is holding up, Russia could run out of time when the commodities rally stalls and the West's sanctions start to bite. The country is showing resilience from a variety of measures, such as padding up its reserves.

Russia has been trying to counteract the effects of sanctions on its economy.

Moscow has been padding up reserves and stashing up gold

Russia had the fifth-largest foreign currency and gold reserves in the world before the invasion. The government's balance sheet can be covered by this stockpile.

The country's finance minister said in March that sanctions had reduced Russia's access to half of that amount. The country is also the world's second- largest producer of precious metal.

The central bank says that Russia's gold holdings have tripled in the last three years. The US has imposed sanctions on Russia, but that wouldn't stop them from doing business with Moscow.

Thanks to a windfall from its oil and gas sales, Russia has continued to add to its emergency funds. It added $12.7 billion to its emergency reserves in the first half of the year. According to a Russian government statement, these funds will be used to make sure stable economic development.

Russia has been weaning itself off foreign capital and paying down debt

A senior economics studies fellow at the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy wrote on March 3 that Russia has been paying down debt aggressively in the last eight years. He said that the country is a net creditor on the international markets.

Andrew Weiss, a Russia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in February that Putin is allergic to borrowing money. He doesn't want the banking system in Russia to be used to make Russia great.

Russia's foreign debts are not very high. The government had $38 billion in foreign currency bonds at the end of the year, according to a report. Greece had a default on 208.6 billion euros in debt in the year.

Russia's national debt is less than triple-digit figures for most developed countries and mostly denominated in rubles. The country doesn't really need to borrow, according to an article on the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace website. The US national debt is around 130% of GDP.

Tabakh said that the biggest problem Russia has now is its foreign debts. Russia will be able to pay down its debt once that is solved, and the country's own resources should be enough to cover the needs of the budget, banks and corporations.

Russia is turning inwards to economic self-sufficiency

Even though it has become an international pariah, Russia's economy will still grow even though it will be slow and low.

Russia is a country that can engage in autarky. He was talking about the idea of economic self-sufficiency.

Russian entities have taken over firms to counter the exodus of international companies that have taken their goods and services with them

The city of Moscow and a Russian state-backed group took over the operations of a French car manufacturer in Russia. The city's mayor said in a post that they plan to revive a Soviet-era car brand.

Russia's economy will be very difficult. Putin said that substituting imports with locally produced goods was not a panacea. Russia will look for new trading partners and continue to develop its own industries.

In his March 3 post, Milesi-Ferretti wrote that the current sanctions will impose very severe costs on the Russian economy.

The International Monetary Fund projected in an April report that Russia's economy will shrink 8.5% in 2022. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the economy has declined the most.

Business Insider has an article on it.