The title isn't deceptive nor I'm clickbaiting you into opening this post, Russia's economy is actually back to the gold standard.
First a little bit of context: The Russian government will abolish the VAT (tax) on bullion. This Bill will go to the State Duma on March 4. Going forward - when purchasing gold bars or other precious metals from a bank, the 20% current tax on top of its value will not apply. This is a way to ensure people can invest securely in something other than the dollar (usually people hold their cash in dollars as the ruble is volatile.)
This happened in March 3, and it definitely doesn't mean that Russia started using the gold standard back then, but it paved the road for the action that Vladimir Putin took a few hours ago - which by the way, threatens the US and Europe traditional economy, so expect retaliation, if the west is still able to retaliate that is:
And holy shit, not surprising at all, Twitter decided to suspend 
Make no mistake, what Russia is doing definitely threatens the status quo of Europe and the US.
The question in all this Gold-Rubble shenanigans is, can people actually trade for it? Until they can it's going to take time for this to have an effect on the market, especially because the spot price is still determined by our almost certainly rigged exchanges. Unless other countries like India or China start joining in this will be a slow burn up... But trust me I wish the economic sham (you know, this garbage debt-fueled ponzi scheme market) that we are living in would explode already.
Basically, and if I am getting this right, Russia isn't SELLING gold, they're BUYING gold for a flat rate, pegging the ruble to gold, but more importantly, pegging oil to gold, since they're only gonna accept rubles for gold sales.
If any country wants to buy gas from Russia, they need Rubles to do so,
if you want rubles, the cheapest way to get them is to sell gold to Russia. This is essentially a peg but I could be wrong, if anyone understands or knows more about this, please correct me.
This is a good source for those who want to do more reading about this topic. This was denied by the G7, but it is Russia who has the last word and if unfriendly countries do not want to buy Gas from Russia using Rubles, then good luck getting gas (not to be confused with ether gas, lol).
The thing is, is the west stops buying oil and gas from Russia, it will be painful for the west but it will be also painful for Russia, and I don't get paid enough to predict what will happen, but I highly doubt Europe dares to go full force into that scenario.
One thing to note, and it is definitely something that most countries do (if not all) one way or another is: Redemption of a gold-backed currency is done at the Central Bank who issues said currency. If you bring your rubbles to the Russian Central Bank, you can't redeem shit. Furthermore, the Russian Central Bank can still print as much rubbles as it wants without being required to have sufficient gold reserves to back them.
About the gold standard
Before the world war 1, most countries based their economy on the gold standard. Under the gold standard, governments couldn't print money whenever they felt like it (just like they did during Covid, a fuckton of countries printed a lot of money just to get off the hook temporarily, pushing back the system collapse a few years). Back then with the gold standard there was no inflation, limited debt and limited wars and most importantly the standard of living rose for the poor and middle class. Life was better in every way than the current fiat scheme that only benefits the money printers and their friends. The abandonment of the gold standard at the start of WW1 by many nations is the greatest tragedy of all time and could lead to total loss of freedom for mankind, something that by the way, is already happening (and crypto is one of the ways out of this soon-to-collapse shitshow.