Should Russia’s gold pay for Ukraine’s war damages?
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Western countries used sanctions to steal its gold and foreign exchange reserves to transfer them to Ukraine – a proposal by the European Union. The proposal reporters referred to was an idea by European Council head Charles Michel that the bloc should consider transferring frozen Russian reserves to Ukraine.
The comment coincided with the eight-month mark of Russia invading Ukraine on February 24. The unprecedented Western sanctions introduced against Russia for its actions have frozen around half of Moscow’s $640 billion worth of gold and foreign exchange reserves.
Earlier this year, countries including the EU, U.S., UK, Canada, Switzerland, and Japan also banned imports of Russian gold. The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) suspended its acreditationof Russian precious metals refers, barring them from selling new products in London.
Russia’s Finance Ministry said back in August that the action paralysed Russia’s precious metals activities and was a critical negative factor. Last week, a Russian finance ministry official said Moscow was in talks with the Shanghai Gold Exchange to get access to precious metals trading.
At the same time, Russia’s central bank deputy governor Aleksey Zabotkin told reporters that purchasing more gold to increase the country’s official reserves was conter-productive for Russia at the moment because it increased the nation’s money supply.
