Putin Is Buying Gold
Russian President Vladimir Putin is buying gold.
It is using its income from petrodollars and diversifying its reserves with “massive amounts of gold,” according to William Rhind, CEO of the World Gold Trust Services.
Among all the central banks that make their reserve actions public, Russia has been “the largest, most active” gold buyer. Rhind said “the elephant in the room” is how much gold China buys.
A recent report from the World Gold Council demonstrated that many central banks, like Russia’s, have increased their gold reserves. This investment, the report hinted, was “driven by a number of factors including a continued diversification away from the U.S. dollar and the backdrop of ongoing geopolitical tensions.”
“I don’t think it’s moving to a de facto gold standard, it’s just simply about diversification,” Rhind said. “In many ways they view it as being not too dissimilar from why anybody would own gold.”
Altogether, Russia’s central bank has bought about 150 metric tons of gold so far this year, according to Bank of Russia Chairwoman Elvira Nabiullina.
