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The G7 and European Union countries will sanction any transaction involving Russia’s gold reserves, to prevent Moscow from circumventing the financial isolation measures taken by the West, the White House announced on Thursday in a communicated.
He is ” clear that any transaction involving gold in connection with the central bank of Russia is covered by the existing sanctions “, said the American executive, while being held in Brussels a series of international summits dedicated to the war in Ukraineincluding a G7 summit and a European Union summit.
A senior US official explained: We want to close any possibility for Russia to use its gold to support its currency », the rouble. He underlined, during an exchange with the press, that Moscow had a stock of gold “ considerable and that the precious metal represented some 20% of Russia’s total reserves.
The same source also said that the G7 countries were “ United » to consider that « international organizations and multilateral bodies should not continue their activities with Russia as if nothing had happened ».
Unlike many countries, Russian gold is mostly in Russia. This means that if the Russians want to pay the Chinese for weapons or electronics tomorrow and they pay them in gold and China accepts it, nobody will be able to trace it and know it.
Jean-François Faure, director of AuCOFFRE.com, a platform for buying and selling precious metals
Remarks to be placed in the context of an increasingly lively debate on the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the next G20 summit in Indonesia, a format which brings together the Western powers and the largest emerging economies. China, for example, has already felt that the Russian leader had a place there, despite calls from some countries to exclude him.