Russian Central Bank Selling Dollars?

I’m not sure how come it’s not in the FT or WSJ, but if the Russian-language news agency Regnum is to be believed, the Russian Central Bank has decided to rebalance their holdings of foreign currencies in favor of the Euro. Regnum attributes the statement to the deputy chairman of the Russian Central Bank, Alexei Ulyukaev, who spoke to the Russian PRIME-TASS agency. According to him, the Russians stopped buying dollars in August, and as of September, they have started selling their dollar-denominated holdings.

The Russian Central Bank has vast stores of American treasuries bought largely with natural resource windfall profits. If this news is indeed true—and is not grounded in some larger macroeconomic rationale—we might be seeing Russia flexing its muscles in new, unprecedented, and terrifying ways. Without seeing the original interview (it’s behind a firewall), it’s difficult to tell what’s going on. But the mere thought of Russia using the global economy to send messages to its rivals sends shudders down one’s spine.