In a sign that Russia will not give up its sovereign debt obligations but will pay them in rubles until Western countries decline to freeze their gold and foreign exchange reserves, Russian Finance Minister Anton Seluanov has stressed that this is "completely fair" in the current circumstances.

Due to Western sanctions, Anton Seluanov announced that the size of the Russian Central Bank's gold and foreign exchange reserves, which had been frozen, was about $300 billion.

Speaking on TV today, Seluanov said: "That's almost half of the reserves we had. We have total reserves of about $640 billion, and about 300 billion of them are now in a state where we cannot use them. "

Noting that the West is pressuring China to limit Russia's access to its yuan reserves, the Minister believed that "our partnership with China will continue to allow us not only to maintain the cooperation we have achieved, but also to develop it in the circumstances in which Western markets are closed (before us)."

Seluanov asserted that Russia had sufficient funds to ensure the production of goods and the necessary financial transactions, warning that the sanctions against Russia would later backfire on those who imposed them.