/ world today news/ The information leaked to the press at the beginning of December by financial expert Charles Litchfield from the NATO-related Washington Atlantic Council (an organization unwanted in Russia) caused a great resonance.
In the first days after the start of the WTO, the United States and its allies froze the foreign exchange assets of the Russian Central Bank (the official foreign reserves of the Russian Federation) in the amount of approximately 300 billion dollars. announced Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. The same figure was spoken in Washington and Brussels.
And now, nine months later, Charles Litchfield in an interview with the Estonian media said that “The United States can’t find two-thirds or more of the Russian assets it froze at the end of February this year and doesn’t know exactly where they are [замразените средства] are located.”
Journalists called it “the loss of the century”. It is noteworthy that the monetary authorities (central banks and ministries of finance) of the countries of the collective West remain completely silent about this sensation. The Bank of Russia also does not comment in any way on the “loss of the century” and does not respond to journalists’ inquiries. Experts gave different versions of the “loss”.
In the solid balance, three main versions emerged.
1. 200 billion dollars of Russian foreign exchange reserves were secretly “unfrozen” as a result of some “deal” between Moscow and the “collective” West. And so that this agreement would not provoke public protests from any side, it was covered up with a story of a mysterious disappearance.
2. The West confiscated 200 billion dollars of Russian foreign reserves in violation of its laws and international law and covered this story with a legend that they allegedly “lost” this money.
3. Russia managed to withdraw its currency reserves from the strike at the last moment.
The most plausible version, in my opinion, is the third. All arguments about the value of the frozen assets of the Bank of Russia are based on the statistics of the Central Bank of Russia on the geographical and currency structure of Russia’s gold and foreign reserves.
The latest data in the available sources is as of January 1, 2022. At the beginning of this year, the reserves of the Bank of Russia, according to the latest annual report of the Central Bank, amounted to 612.9 billion dollars. 55.5% of international reserves are placed in «unfriendly currencies»: Euro (33.9%), US dollar (10.9%), British pound sterling (6.2%), Canadian dollar (3.2 %), Australian Dollar (1.0%), Singapore Dollar (0.3%). The rest are gold (21.5%), Chinese yuan (17.1%), other currencies not deciphered in the report (5.9%).
Of this amount, more than half were placed in countries that imposed sanctions: 15.7% in Germany, 9.9% in France, 9.3% in Japan, 6.4% in the USA, 5.1% – in Great Britain, 2.7% in Canada and 2.5% % in Australia. A total of 51.6% of the assets were to be in countries that imposed sanctions and admitted to participating in the “freeze” of reserves.
The layout of instruments for deploying foreign exchange reserves is also presented. The main part of the gold-currency reserve is placed in government securities of foreign issuers – 38.5%. Share of other instruments (in %): foreign currency deposits of foreign banks – 30.2; non-governmental securities of foreign issuers – 4.6; securities of international organizations – 3.8, etc.
Once again, I note that the figures presented reflect the situation as of January 1, 2022. The freezing of Russian currency assets, according to reports in foreign media, took place at the very end of February. These. it is two months after the date of the last Bank of Russia photo.
Why don’t we assume that the Bank of Russia has been ordered to withdraw the foreign reserves of the Russian Federation from the strike as soon as possible? And why not suppose that, for all the sluggishness of the Central Bank, he had plenty of time to carry out the command? And more: if there was no such team, then not only the Central Bank, but also those who planned the SVO should be blamed for the fact that Russia’s foreign exchange reserves were frozen.
The fact that we have the opportunity to quickly withdraw Russia’s foreign exchange reserves from under the blow (“currency maneuver”) is proven by actions. Back in March 2014, when the collective West began a sanctions war against Russia, I drew attention to the fact that in that month, according to data from the US Treasury Department, central banks around the world dumped more than $100 billion in Treasury securities. US finances from their balance sheets. There was no decoding which central banks did this.
However, I suggested that the Bank of Russia may have done this in the first place. I wrote about this in my book “The Economic War Against Russia and Stalin’s Industrialization” (Moscow: Algorithm, 2014). Confirmation of my version came in the summer of 2017.
The news agency Reuters reported currency manipulation in March 2014: “As foreign assets at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York fell by about $115 billion, U.S. officials confirmed that, what others could only suspect: According to two former Fed officials: Russia’s central bank has withdrawn its funds. Although the Kremlin’s public response has been defiant, Fed and Treasury officials have concluded that Moscow fears the U.S. will freeze Russian assets even though the account is not subject to the narrow scope of the sanctions…
About two weeks later, Russia’s central bank returned most of the money to its Fed account, but the incident prompted officials to monitor the account more closely for signs that sanctions had forced Moscow to draw down its reserves, the same source said… The bank of Russia said it would not comment on “the details of its operations and interactions with partners”. The Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to an email inquiry.”
I will only add that the amount of Russian assets withdrawn by the New York Fed amounts to 23% of all the gold and foreign reserves of Russia at this time. These “combat exercises” were conducted in the spring of 2014. I note that after that the Central Bank began to conduct a policy of changing the structure of foreign reserves, reducing the share of the US dollar in favor of other currencies, as well as changing the geographical structure of reserves , reducing the share of the United States.
At the beginning of 2022, as I noted above, the main reserve currency was the euro, and the main part of the deposited foreign reserves fell on the EU countries. And if the Central Bank of Russia really tried to save its foreign exchange reserves, then this time it should conduct a currency maneuver primarily in Europe, not in the United States.
Many paid attention to the publication of Reuters from May 25 this year: ” Brussels says about $24 bln of Russian central bank assets frozen in EU, less than expected than expected).
According to expert estimates, Brussels should have frozen at least $100 billion in foreign exchange reserves (it turns out that the shortfall is at least $75 billion). At the time, the Reuters publication was ignored. Many believe that probably the majority of frozen assets are in other regions of the world. However, the latest information from Reuters says that there is a shortage not only in the EU but also worldwide.
So, I guess the shortfall of the collective West came about because the Bank of Russia carried out a currency maneuver between January 1st and February 24th of this year, which saved about $200 billion of Russian reserves from being frozen. I would like to believe this version. Because otherwise, another version comes into force, according to which the Bank of Russia has been inactive, playing on the side of Russia’s geopolitical opponents.
Translation: ES
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