ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

By:  Sorcha Faal A curious Ministry of Finance ( MoF ) report circulating in the Kremlin today says that the Central Bank of Russia ( CBR ) has “accepted for protection” 3 million ounces of gold worth over $3.5 billon from US banking and financial services giant Citigroup along with a further nearly $100 billion in cash. According to this report, 1.4 million ounces of this now protected gold in the vaults of the CBR were shipped directly from Venezuela after this past April’s complex agreement between that South American nation and Citigroup, with the remaining 1.6 ounces coming from various countries this banking and financial service giant has cut ties with in the past year and a half. Of the 11 nations, including Japan , that Citigroup has cut ties with, this report explains, even in the face of Western sanctions Citigroup has refused to sever its Federation relationship with its chief financial officer, John Gerspach, simply telling the Obama regime “ We are not leaving ...

President and Chairman of the Board of JSC Rosneft Igor Sechin (R). © Mikhail Voskresensky / RIA Novosti Energy deals between Russian oil major Rosneft and Chinese partners will be worth more than $500 billion in the next 20 years, according to Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin. "Taking into account mutual trade and the existing contracts, the total value of cooperation of our company [with Chinese partners – Ed.] through 2035 will amount to $500 billion at current prices," Sechin said during the Eastern Economic Forum on Friday. Moscow and Beijing are negotiating an increase in Russian oil supplies to China, said the chairman of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) Wang Yilin. "China currently imports 15 million tons of crude oil from Russia through a pipeline. Now we are working on building a separate pipeline to increase the supply of crude oil to China,” said Yilin. He added that the two companies are cooperating and expressed hopes that the goal of increasing crude...