It is commonly believed that the steep decline of the Russian ruble this autumn resulted from the US and EU economic sanctions against Russia. This is not the whole story, though. The present day situation on the Russian currency market is a “perfect storm” with sanctions being just one of many factors that came about at the same time. Each of these circumstances has its own logic and could potentially affect the Russian economy, but none of them alone could have caused such a storm. However, all of them combined did. Moreover, these factors are not going anywhere, likely making the Russian ruble unstable for the foreseeable future.