As the American Congress writes new sanctions against the Russian Federation for election meddling and other malign activities, the Kremlin is selling U.S. securities and stockpiling gold.
According to International Monetary Fund data analyzed by Bloomberg, Moscow bought 26.1 tonnes of gold in July. That is the largest single monthly purchase since late 2017 and gives Russia a total of 2,170 tonnes of gold in reserve.
At current prices, those reserves are worth about $83.6 billion. A Russian government website lists the value of the holdings as being worth about $77 billion at the end of July, reported Business Insider.
Stockpiling gold would also allow Russia to avoid any negative consequences from a devaluation of the dollar. Gold has been languishing with relatively low valuations for some time as inflation has ben controlled for a decade. That situation may not last as other countries look to remove the US dollar from their financial and trading systems.
Putin Sends His Mercenary Chef To Dig For Gold (Military Base) In Africa…Literally and Figuratively
Christopher Ford, the assistant secretary at the State Department’s Bureau Of International Security And Nonproliferation, and Sigal Mandelker, the acting under secretary of terrorism and financial crimes at the Treasury Department, told a Senate banking hearing that the US was preparing plans to impose more economic pain on Russia, added Business Insider.
