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In an unprecedented move, the United States has just announced it is making inaccessible all assets of the Russian Central Bank in US, including gold and anything else, as well as any asset held by US persons, and thus entities, anywhere in the globe.
“This action effectively immobilizes any assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation held in the United States or by U.S. persons, wherever located,” the US treasury said in a statement.
“The unprecedented action we are taking today will significantly limit Russia’s ability to use assets to finance its destabilizing activities, and target the funds Putin and his inner circle depend on to enable his invasion of Ukraine,” US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said before adding:
“Today, in coordination with partners and allies, we are following through on key commitments to restrict Russia’s access to these valuable resources.”
The United States is further sanctioning the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) as well as its head, Kirill Dmitriyev.
One senior administration official said in a briefing:
“We wanted to put these actions in place before our markets open because what we learned over the course of the weekend from our allies and partners was the Russian Central Bank was attempting to move assets and there would be a great deal of asset flight starting on Monday morning from institutions around the world. So we’re taking these actions in a way that they will be effective immediately…
Russia decided that they were going to try and build a war chest to try and defend against the actions that we may take, if they were to take further actions in Ukraine or elsewhere in the world. We knew that this existed and we knew that ultimately, one of the things that we would need to do to ensure that our sanctions would be effective is at some point to go after that war chest and that’s exactly what we’ve done today.”
It’s unclear just how many assets Russia’s central bank holds in US or is controlled by US persons, but America and Europe continue to almost totally dominate global finance, and thus their arm may reach very far indeed.
