MOSCOW, (Reuters) – The Russian rouble climbed to 74 against the dollar Wednesday thanks to support from the central bank’s plan to raise rates. Also, market risk appetite increased following a long-anticipated video meeting between U.S. officials and Russian leaders.

On Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden told Vladimir Putin that Russia would be subject to “strong economic” and other sanctions if the West invades Ukraine. Putin demanded that NATO not expand further eastward.

Artem Zaigrin is chief economist of Sova Capital.

The rouble, at 1310 GMT was 0.5% more expensive than the dollar at USD 73.70, but it still lags far behind its October 2021 high of 69.21. Russian currency fell 0.1% to 83.30 against the euro.

The Biden-Putin conference saw some gains in government bonds, even though there were no breakthroughs. However, the two leaders agreed to maintain communication which may help to lower global tensions.

Rosbank analysts wrote in a note that there are reasons to be optimistic as yesterday’s U.S.-Russia summit was free of any signs of confrontation. The Russia-targeted actions didn’t make it into U.S. defense bill 2022.

In response to persistently high inflation, the central bank is likely to support the rouble by raising the key interest rate more than 25 basis points on its Dec. 17 meeting.

Russia will publish its November inflation data and report the most recent week’s later, Wednesday.

According to Dmitry Kharlampiev, Sinara’s debt market division manager, year-end inflation will likely exceed central bank forecasts of 7.9%. This could lead to a rate rise of over 50 basis points and possibly another increase.

The stock indexes lost earlier gains and declined with the RTS dollar-denominated index dropping 0.5% to 1,639.9. MOEX’s rouble index dropped 0.9% at 3,837.9.