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Faced with unprecedented sanctions for a country, and all the more so for a great power, Russia is doing what it can to circumvent them or limit their impact. But Westerners are keeping an eye out: the White House said in a statement released on Thursday that the G7 and European Union countries will sanction any transaction involving Russia’s gold reserves, which might be put to use. to circumvent the isolation imposed on the country.
Moscow would have a stock of gold qualified as “considerable” by the American administration: between 2020 and 2021, the Central Bank of Russia would have accumulated an average of 997.64 tons of yellow metal, and this provision was estimated at 2,298 tons in July 2021, according to Trading Economics, which would not be far from the total maximum recorded by this benchmark institution.
140 billion in gold
More recently, Yahoo Finance referred to the fifth largest amount of gold in the world, worth $140 billion.
But the Americans want to make sure that this stock does not save the Russian economy, assures a senior Washington official: “We want to close any possibility for Russia to use its gold to support its currency. »
Sanctions that have not neglected bullion
The G7 countries, meeting this Thursday in Brussels, want to present a united front once morest Russia on the issue of economic sanctions, recalls BFM Business.
A fight for which the Americans are on the front line, as evidenced by a press release from the American Treasury calling for increased vigilance in the face of the maneuvers that Russia might implement to unblock its stock of bullion: “The Russian people targeted by the sanctions are known to resort to a wide variety of measures to evade US and international sanctions. Any transaction involving gold linked to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation is covered by the existing sanctions. »
But the Russians are most likely and very actively looking for ways to put their huge gold reserves to good use.