Kremlin begins record-breaking gold sell-off from central bank reserves

Filed 51m ago · Via NV · The Buffoon Desk

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Deadly Roulette

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: CBP Photography · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Russia's central bank sold 21.77 tonnes of gold in the second quarter of 2026, making it the world's largest central bank seller of gold, according to the World Gold Council, far outpacing second-place Turkey's 4.23 tonnes. Analysts say the sales are meant to cover a federal budget deficit that reached 6.45 trillion rubles ($75 billion) between January and July, up sharply from the same period last year.

The bank has sold roughly 49.7 tonnes since the start of the year, the largest such liquidation since Russia's 1998 default, and gold reserves have fallen to their lowest level since 2020. Analysts note this doesn't signal imminent bankruptcy since Russia's reserves remain the world's fifth largest, but the trend reflects mounting strain from war spending and lost access to roughly $300 billion in Western-held foreign currency reserves.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

There's a certain kind of household that starts pawning the wedding china right around the time it insists everything's under control. Twenty years to sell off the whole reserve at this pace sounds like a long runway, until you remember the war bills keep coming due every month, not every twenty years. Analysts calling this merely a strain rather than a collapse is the financial version of telling someone their fever's only 102.

Source: Read the original at NV → Scored: Deadly Roulette · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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