Why Is Russia Launching CBDC?

Russia has just launched a central bank digital currency (CBDC), and there has been speculations that the digital ruble will allow Russia to evade US sanctions. What is CBDC, and how might the introduction of digital ruble and other CBDCs impact the effectiveness of US sanctions and the position of USD as global reserve currency? To unpack these themes, we spoke to David Andolfatto, a former SVP at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and Marco Santanché, a former Credit Suisse quant strategist. [Vladimir Putin - Caricature by DonkeyHotey is licensed under CC BY 2.0]