At the G7 Summit, the United Kingdom joins the United States, Canada, and Japan in banning Russian gold imports

With a value of 12.6 billion pounds in 2021, gold will be a significant export for Russia. With oligarchs scrambling to purchase gold bullion in an effort to mitigate the financial effects of western sanctions, its worth to the Russian elite has also risen recently.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is present at the conference in Bavaria, stated that the sanctions “we have proposed today will directly punish Russian oligarchs and strike at the core of Putin’s war machine.”

“Putin is squandering his dwindling resources on this pointless and barbaric war. He is bankrolling his ego at the expense of both the Ukrainian and Russian people. We need to starve the Putin regime of its funding. The UK and our allies are doing just that,” he said.

London is a major global gold trading hub and UK sanctions, which will be the first of their kind to be implemented against Russia anywhere in the world, will have a huge impact on Putin’s ability to raise funds.

The actions taken by the London Bullion Market to halt six Russian refineries in March were built upon by the measures announced this week. The soon-to-be-enacted import restriction on gold will cover all recently mined or refined gold. Russian gold that was previously exported from Russia is unaffected.

The Russian gold legally purchased before to the import ban will not be subject to additional restrictions, according to the UK government.

As the UK commits additional GBP 429 million in guarantees for World Bank funding to Ukraine, legislation to execute this most recent prohibition will be introduced in the UK Parliament. PTI PMS PMS AK