While Western countries were negotiating ways to transfer part of the frozen reserves of the Russian Central Bank to Ukraine, and the police were looking for yachts and property of Russian oligarchs in European countries, the Kremlin managed to amass new currency reserves abroad in the amount of half the national budget.

Since the beginning of 2022, Russian residents have accumulated $180 billion in foreign accounts, according to Janis Kluge, a research fellow at the German Institute for International Security Studies, based on statistics from the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

In the Central Bank's data on Russia's international investment position, this money is included in the items "other investments", "loans, credits, cash currency and deposits", as well as "other debt".

Most likely, the "shadow reserves" are the money of large exporting companies, writes Kluge: in 2022, Russia received record raw material revenues ($591.5 billion) and a record balance of payments surplus ($227.4 billion), which decreased in 2023, but remained significant ($118.3 billion). Currency in such volumes did not end up in Russian accounts or in the reserves of the Central Bank, which is under sanctions.

The size of the "piggy bank" accumulated abroad is equal to half of the Russian federal budget ($406 billion), comparable to the entire gold reserves of the Central Bank ($188 billion) and almost twice its own foreign exchange reserves. Although the Central Bank itself reports the presence of $613 billion in gold and foreign exchange reserves, including $396 billion in foreign currency, in fact, more than $300 billion are blocked by sanctions. And all that the regulator has is about $100 billion in Chinese yuan.

Very little is known about the "shadow reserves", Kluge emphasizes: both the countries where they are located and the currencies or assets they are invested in remain a mystery. This money is not visible in the statistics of Western countries, the expert notes, which means that the currency is most likely hidden in countries that the Kremlin calls "friendly". This could be, for example, Turkey or India, which have a large trade deficit with Russia ($3 billion and $6 billion per month, respectively).

In any case, this money ended up in the form of deposits or export credits outside developed economies and major global financial centers, experts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank for International Settlements wrote in April.

"Shadow reserves" could become a lifeline for the economy if oil prices fall, export revenues decline, and the inflow of foreign currency is no longer sufficient to pay for imports, Kluge writes. However, how liquid they are and what part of them can be brought into Russia remains unclear, the expert admits: this money could include, for example, Indian rupees that Russia received in payment for oil, and then faced the impossibility of withdrawing them from India or spending them.

Russia managed to accumulate the bulk of its "shadow reserves" in 2022, but their size continues to slowly increase, according to Kluge's estimates. The Russian Central Bank explains this, among other things, by the problems with payments that Russian businesses have encountered.

According to the regulator's statistics, Russian companies increased their foreign assets by $44.6 billion in January–July 2024. A significant portion of this amount is associated with "the complication of international payment chains," which is why businesses are forming "accounts receivable" — that is, an overhang of funds not received on time, the Central Bank wrote in July.