Published on: 2026-06-06
Source: Rosneft – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
The global economy has entered a zone of strategic risks, stated Igor Sechin, the Responsible Secretary of the Commission under the President of the Russian Federation on issues of strategy for the development of the fuel and energy complex and environmental safety, at the Energy Panel within the framework of the XXIX St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
“The global economy has entered a phase not just of volatility, but of strategic risks. Problems are growing like a snowball,” he said during his speech with the keynote report “The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning: What Remains at the Bottom of Pandora’s Box?”.
Sechin reminded how the refusal of the fundamental principles of the Bretton Woods system, associated with gold backing, led to a large-scale unbacked issuance of money. “Since 2008, the money supply in the world has increased by more than 30 trillion dollars, almost half of which came from the USA and the Eurozone,” he noted.
In his opinion, the result of such a policy was a large-scale flow of capital from the real sector to the virtual one, which led to a hypertrophied growth of the mass of fictitious capital. “Today, its volume exceeds 500 trillion dollars – this is almost five times larger than the global GDP. Over the past 20 years, this ratio has increased one and a half times,” Igor Sechin said.
He noted that this phenomenon did not bypass the Russian financial system. In Russia, this indicator is already approaching 100% of GDP. “Even Aristotle considered the most unnatural form of enrichment to be the one in which money produces money. The entire modern financial system is built on this,” emphasized Igor Sechin.
He provided data from the Institute of International Finance, according to which the volume of global debt has actually doubled over the past 15 years.
According to the International Monetary Fund’s assessment, by the end of the current year, Japan’s total public debt will reach almost 205% of GDP, the USA – almost 130%, France – 120%, and the United Kingdom – 105%.
Economist John Maynard Keynes in his work “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money” warned about the danger of turning productive investments into speculative bubbles. According to him, when the development of productive capital in the country becomes a side product of the activities of the financial market casino, it is unlikely to be successful. “The monetary concept accepted today states that money has its own value and is not exclusively a calculation instrument — a means of payment. It is precisely this concept that forms the bubble in the financial market,” noted Igor Sechin.
In his opinion, the debt of most countries today is not backed by real financial assets. Even physical gold, stored in US vaults (and this is over 14 thousand tons), covers only five percent of the 39 trillion US dollars of American debt. At the same time, a significant portion of the gold stored in America does not belong to it – more than 40% of these reserves were transferred from other countries for safekeeping,” Sechin said.
He emphasized the situation similar to the debt issues of the US allied countries. France’s gold reserves cover only 9% of this country’s national debt, Japan – 1.5%, the United Kingdom – just over 1%.
Summing up, Igor Sechin quoted the British historian and sociologist, a critic of Eurocentrism Arnold Toynbee: “Civilizations are not killed, they commit suicide themselves.” In other words, the key risks are formed within the system itself, he summarized.
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PJSC “NK “Rosneft”
June 6, 2026
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