Friday, Russia's Central Bank announced that it will keep its key rate at 7.5 percent, citing an expansion of consumer demand and expansion of the public sector.

However, the bank's governor Elvira Nabiullina refused to rule out the future possibility of a rate increase if Russia continues to exceed its target inflation rate of four percent.

Nabiullina said: "Today we have decided to keep the key rate at 7.5 percent per annum. Domestic demand continues to expand both due to the growth of consumer activity and due to the public sector."

"In recent months, there has been a noticeable revival of retail lending, which, along with the growth of household incomes, stimulates an active recovery in consumer demand. Thus, the current price increase is increasing more and more not due to one-time, but due to sustainable factors," she explained.

"Inflationary risks have increased, which means that the likelihood of a key rate increase has also increased. We admit the possibility of its increase at the next meetings. The scale of the increase will depend on incoming data on price dynamics, inflation expectations, aggregate demand and the extent to which these data will affect the risks of inflation deviating from the target near four percent in 2020," Nabiullina added.