Partly due to the fact that the US dollar is relatively stable against the Russian ruble. Although it must be said that the Russian ruble has performed extremely strongly against the US dollar since the war. While it initially lost a lot of ground against the dollar, it later completely turned around. At the time of writing, the ruble rate is trading even higher than before the war.
What is going on?
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly why stablecoin trading volume has increased among the Russian population. They are indeed suffering from strong inflation in Russia, but the ruble is still outperforming the US dollar for the time being. Of course, it could also be that Russians have more confidence in the dollar in the longer term and therefore want to protect themselves with stablecoins.
Another reason that stablecoins may be gaining popularity is that Russians abroad cannot pay with their own payment cards. Stablecoins and peer-to-peer transactions can offer a solution in that sense. It seems more likely that the increased stablecoin volume has to do with that. For many Russians, this is one of the few ways to survive abroad.