system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: The Russian monetary crisis.

also, is the West panicking the Russians with money the way Russia is panicking their energy consumers via gas exports?
gpt
Essentially:

Russia's economy is built and tied to the price of oil. Russia has a lot of it. Russia sells a lot of it to people.

Recently, America has been able to quell it's dependence on oil through fracking.

The middle east has made available a lot more of its oil resources recently as well.

As such, with some of the major players no longer purchasing as much oil, and ad more and more oil stock up and becomes available. Supply and demand kicks in.

The price of oil starts to drop.

Remembering that the Russian economy is tied to oil. The economy in Russia starts to go belly up as does their dollar.

Normally when this sort of thing happens. Other nations set in and provide support. Lending assistance and helping to return the economy of said nation to a stable state.

Enter Crimea. Russia decided to declare an illegal war on Ukraine and invaded Crimea. The West and the UN decided this was not to be tolerated. And instead of going to war with Russia over Crimea. They imposed sanctions. Sanctions which stop anyone from helping russia.

Further, Russia could potentially in a last ditch effort attempt to stabilize its econmy through exports other than oil. However, again, sanctions. 

TL;DR: Russia invaded Ukraine and by doing so ruined relations with the outside world. Russia didn't care because almost all of Europe depends on russia for oil. Months later. Several world developments eased the words oil needs and suddenly no one really needed oil as much anymore. The price of oil fell and with it came russias economy. No one is allowed to/wants to help them because everyone is pissed about ukraine.