WASHINGTON, April 6. /TASS/. The sanctions, imposed by Western nations over the situation in Ukraine, are affecting the Russian economy but are unlikely to cause it to collapse in the short-term perspective, Philip Nichols, an expert on Russia at the University of Pennsylvania, has told the Washington Post.

"The sanctions are doing what they’re meant to: They’re causing low-level, but fundamental, stress on the Russian economy," Nichols said. "But in the short term, we’re not going to see anything approaching a collapse in the Russian economy."

According to the paper, the Washington administration is under growing pressure to toughen the anti-Russian sanctions over events in the Ukrainian city of Bucha. The US Department of the Treasury claims that Western economic restrictions "punished Russia with nearly unprecedented speed." However, Washington Post said, there was an alternative point of view that Russia was coping with pressure.

After initially falling dramatically in February, the ruble has bounced back to levels observed prior to the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, the paper wrote.

According to Nichols, Russia appears to be "well-equipped to keep paying its debts for many months, even if the sanctions make doing so more expensive and difficult," the paper said.

On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an early morning televised address that he had launched a special military operation in Ukraine in response to a request for help from the leaders of the Donbass republics. He stressed that Moscow had no intention of occupying Ukrainian territories, the sole purpose of the operation, the leader stressed, is the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.

The United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and some other countries responded by imposing sanctions on Russian individuals and companies.