Medvedev and Kudrin on the Dollar: The same, but different

By way of comparison to my last post on this topic, Bloomberg, via the Moscow Times, has done its own quote-tracking exercise of Russian discussion about the dollar, surveying some analysts on how they interpret the seemingly differing stances that Dmitry Medvedev and Alexei Kudrin have taken.

I leave it to you to peruse the entire list of Bloomberg’s findings but to me the two most telling statements in the article are the June 6 comment from Kudrin that even if the US sovereign rating were cut, treasuries would still be “among the most liquid investments”, and UralSib’s chief economist Vladimir Tikhomirov with this comment:

Talk of reducing the role of the dollar is a “double-edged sword,” for Russia, Tikhomirov said. “It doesn’t so much hurt America. Any hint that Russia is going to change the structure of its reserves is going to hurt Russia as well.”