Gold makes up a quarter of Moscow’s reserves, and Washington’s task is to prevent monetization of it.

A group of U.S. senators is working with the country’s Treasury Department on a bill that would help block Russia’s roughly $132 billion in gold reserves in response to an invasion of Ukraine. 

This was announced by the Axios portal, citing sources. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will meet Senators Angus King (Island), John Cornyn (D-Texas), Bill Hagerty (D-Tennessee) and Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire) this week to discuss the legislative initiative. 

According to the portal, over the weekend, the offices of Congress and the Treasury were working on making some technical changes to the bill. 

As Senator King noted, the document could be adopted by the Senate as early as this week. 

The publication recalled that Russian officials and oligarchs can use Russia’s gold reserves to launder money or exchange for foreign currency in unregulated markets. 

The Kremlin began to accumulate gold in 2014 when the US imposed new sanctions for the annexation of Crimea. 

Now that the ruble is falling, the Bank of Russia is starting to buy gold again. 

At the same time, the existing sanctions against the Russian Federation apply to any transactions involving the Central Bank, the Ministry of Finance and the NWF of the country, including with gold. 

However, the measures do not affect gold, which, for example, was transferred to an unsanctioned Russian bank. 

The new legislation will impose secondary sanctions on any US entities knowingly dealing in gold or transporting it from the reserves of the Russian Central Bank. 

They will also face sanctions if they sell gold physically or electronically in Russia. 

Senator King stressed that gold makes up a quarter of Russia’s reserves and the US task is to prevent its monetization.

Image Credit: Getty

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