Russia’s current account surplus, the broadest measure of trade, more than doubled in the first quarter of 2022 from the same period last year amid soaring oil and gas prices, according to data from the Russian central bank cited by Bloomberg . Russia—which continued its oil and gas sales in Q1 at the highest prices in years—saw its current account surplus jump by more than 2.5 times from last year’s first quarter to $58.2 billion from $22.5 billion. Russian revenues from oil and gas sales soared in the first quarter, while imports plunged amid companies withdrawing from Russia over Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. This resulted in a major surplus in the Russian trade of goods and services. “Export inflows stayed practically the same, but imports dropped sharply because of logistics limits and restrictions imposed by Western countries,” Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told local newspaper Izvestia in an […]