NPR.

This is the indicator for plan of money.

I'm E.D. Reenma.

And I'm Daryen Woods.

We are watching devastating scenes in Ukraine as Russian trucks and tanks invade the country

from the north, from the south and from the east.

It's war.

But it's also a financial war.

And Russia has been building a financial defense system for something like this for years.

You might have heard of it recently.

It's called Fortress Russia.

And at the core of Fortress Russia is massive foreign exchange reserves.

That's officially about $640 billion worth of cash, other government bonds, and gold

that Russia's central bank has amassed over the years.

The idea is that these reserves could wait out the sanctions.

Russia needs foreign currencies for imports, and they import a lot.

The reserves were built up so that Russians could still exchange their rubles for dollars

and euros to buy cars and furniture and phones even in the rough times.

Think of Russia's reserves like a rainy day savings account, about $5,000 worth for

every man, woman, and child in Russia, just sitting there waiting to prop up the Russian

rubble if needed.

But that fortress is freezing up after a financial attack.

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