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$30.2bn. The same month as the share of T-bonds in Russia was cut in April, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) was increasing its Fx/gold reserves by $1.3bn.
Fitch Ratings in its latest report said it expects the Russian government to replenish its fiscal buffers by $60bn in 2018 under the finance ministry's foreign exchange intervention programme, intended to accumulate oil and gas revenue savings and reduce the impact of oil price moves on the real effective exchange rate.
Russia provided an innocent response to questions about the Treasury sales. "We have increased the share of gold in recent years, almost tenfold in ten years, so we are diversifying the entire structure of currencies," Elvira Nabiullina, the head of Russia's central bank, told state media earlier this month. Nabiullina added that Russia assesses "all the risks: financial economic and geopolitical."
32 RUSSIA Country Report August 2018 www.intellinews.com