Take, for example, a 2014 sanction limiting loans from Western financial institutions to a maximum of three months. Russian companies responded by paying down their debt so that total government and corporate foreign debt in Russia fell to $455 billion at the start of this year from $713 billion in 2014. By contrast, Western companies have taken advantage of low interest rates to run up trillions of dollars in debt in the past decade.

“Russia over the past six years has been living with a hostile foreign environment because of sanctions,” said Mr. Tikhomirov. When the virus threat passes, he said, “it’s possible things will come back to life faster in Russia than in other countries because there won’t be the negative drag of debt.”

The Russian government on Thursday published its plan to contain the virus and maintain economic activity. It said that all pneumonia patients would now be tested and that the country was making 100,000 test kits a day.