Due to sanctions imposed by the U.S., Europe, and their allies, which blocked Russia's access to part of its foreign exchange reserves, Russia cannot use nearly half of them - about $300 billion.
"This is about half of these reserves that we had. We have a total of about $640 billion of reserves, about $300 billion of reserves are now in a state where we can't use them," Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in an interview on a Russian TV channel, noting that some of the gold and foreign exchange reserves, including the National Welfare Fund, are frozen.
The minister also reminded that part of Russia's gold and foreign currency reserves are in the yuan, which is why the West is trying to get China to restrict Russia's access to its currency as well.
Siluanov said that because of the freezing of reserves Russia has problems with fulfillment of obligations, including debt obligations. The minister reiterated a previously voiced thesis: Russia will service sovereign debt, including that denominated in foreign currency, in rubles until the gold and foreign currency reserves are unfrozen.
"We need to pay for critical imports. Food, medicine, a whole range of other vital goods. But - once again - the debts that we have to pay to countries that have been unfriendly to the Russian Federation and have made such restrictions on the use of foreign exchange reserves - it is to these countries that we will pay debts in the ruble equivalent," the minister said.
On March 1, the USA issued a directive prohibiting the Americans to carry out any transactions with the Bank of Russia, the Ministry of Finance and the National Welfare Fund (NWF). Similar decisions were announced by the UK, Japan, Canada, and Switzerland.
The actual structure of reserves is not known - the Bank of Russia discloses detailed information with a lag of at least six months.