According to data released by the country’s central bank, Russia’s foreign holdings continue to grow, reaching $580.6 billion as of August 12th. Russia has been building up its international reserves as it looks to shield itself from sanctions. International reserves consist of monetary gold, special drawing rights with the IMF, and foreign currency funds.

Over a single week, total reserves rose $5.8 billion according to the regulator, with 1% of the rise produced by a positive market revaluation.

The Russian government had previously reached its all time high in foreign reserves, at $643.2 billion, in February of 2022, just before the military action in Ukraine began.

Russia lost access to about half of its foreign reserves in March, when Western nations imposed sanctions which caused many foreign central banks to freeze Russian assets as punishment for the military action in Ukraine.

Despite this, as Russia thrives selling fuel and other products to Asian nations at discounted, but still high prices, the Russian Finance Ministry says the country will have no problem dealing with its sanctions packages due to its rapidly growing foreign reserves.