Anything that has worth is valued according to two main factors: time spent to acquire and exclusivity.

All forms of currency are promissory notes that represent something both exclusive and time intensive.

For example, gold fits the bill of both, being time-exhaustive to acquire and is exclusive to only a few who can A. Find it B. Transport it. C. Store it

Gold, therefore, is a good commodity to base a currency form around, in addition to the fact it never spoils. It's hard to find, is useful as a soft and non-oxidative metal (good for electronics), and is universally valued for its luster.

Central Bankers have, instead of basing their money on gold, based our global currency on oil.

This is called the Petro-Dollar.

Why would they do this?

Because they can control the value from both sides.

Oil is time-intensive and exclusive, sure, but it is also consumable. Once you burn it, it's gone. It's also far less exclusive than gold or other precious metals.

If your currency is based on oil, it means you can prevent drilling in order to devalue the dollar. The less oil is being found, the more dollars exist than there are gallons of oil, which employs economic scarcity as a scheme to adjust the value. Lowball numbers, but if we have 40 gallons of oil and 200,000 petro-dollars in circulation, that means each gallon is worth $5000 petro-dollars each.

If we stop drilling, and we go down to 25 gallons of oil available, then each gallon is worth $8000 petro-dollars.

So, you can cause dramatic increases of artificial inflation by prohibiting drilling. Since we burn the commodity on a daily basis, the amount available will get more and more scarce until you're paying $100,000 for 2 gallons of oil. It's a system that can self-correct by burning away the surplus in order to artificially adjust the petro-dollar's buying power.

But this only works one way. Opening up drilling doesn't really increase the value of the dollar, it just decreases the value of oil. Going up to 70 gallons at $2,857.14 a gallon doesn't take any money out of circulation.

How do you control the other side?

Fractional Reserve Banking.

You print more money and now you have 400,000 petro-dollars in circulation. Overnight you can adjust prices and halve the value of the dollar.

Combine this and control drilling and you have full reign of control over inflation.

It's like pulling a tree out. If you yank on the tree you'll take all the dirt up with it. Instead, you wiggle it back and forth and pry it out of the ground without destroying the dirt. Cycling between drilling and not drilling while steadily printing more money is like wiggling the economy back and forth so as to not alert the People that you are ripping everything they have out of the ground.

So, to answer your question as it pertains to the ruble and Russia...

Russia is getting off the petro-dollar. Simultaneously they are drilling more and more.

The value of the ruble is going down because other nations are banding together to agree not to buy from Russia. Which means that despite the surplus oil jacking the buying power of the ruble up, the ruble itself is no longer a valued currency, so people are tapping out and desperately trying to turn their rubles into anything they can.

The go-to would have been oil, but the oil buying-power of the ruble is far too high to get your value back out of the ruble.

So now, you have a ton of people who have a ton of rubles that no one wants and the only one willing to trade in the ruble is Russia and the ideal thing to trade using the petro-dollar, oil, is worth nothing as well.

Oligarchs in Russia are getting squeezed, and they can't get rid of their rubles fast enough. That's why the value of the ruble tanked despite the surplus in oil in Russia.

Russia moving to a gold standard will revalue the ruble. This will crush the petro-dollar, and suddenly everyone will want to buy the ruble. The Central Banks know this, so this war is set to make sure if Russia does go on the gold standard, there will be sanctions and embargos in place to prevent other nations from trading in the ruble.

Everyone is desperate to get rid of their rubles. Russia is the only one buying because they have to. This has tanked the ruble.

The Central Bankers have created every circumstance they can to make it a bad time to switch to a gold-backed ruble. Russia needs open trade to have a gold-standard work. What value is a gold-backed dollar if everyone else refuses to exchange their petro-dollars for it?