Washington Ahead of the opening of US markets, senior US officials said the US is approving Russia’s central bank to prevent the government from using its emergency reserve currencies to protect the economy from a campaign of Western pressure.
Officials said the sanctions should further increase inflation as Russia’s central bank is barred from using the dollar, euro and other foreign currencies in its reserves to stabilize the ruble. The US action, coordinated with its European and other Western allies, is part of its broader effort to force the Kremlin to abandon its violent invasion of Ukraine.
“‘Fortress Russia'” will be exposed as a myth,” one of the officials said, referring to Moscow’s efforts in recent years to bolster its economy against Western sanctions, including by its central bank. Contains war reserves of $630 billion.
Officials said the sanctions also target another major government stockpile of assets, a major sovereign-wealth fund called the Russian Direct Investment Fund, and ask Moscow to use other government and private banks to manage the central bank’s operations. Prevents use, officials said. The US is preparing a waiver for energy payments to cushion European and global economies against inflation as a result of cutting exports from one of the world’s top oil and natural gas providers.
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