Going down the rabbit hole of "Frozen Russian Gold", John Kim is one of the foremost "gold geeks", but he only talks about CME, LBMA and COMEX "freezing out" Russian gold:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2022-03- ... no-clothes
Thus, if the majority of gold and silver traders understand all the points I’ve made in this article, the banning on 7 March 2022 of all bars by the LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) from its inventory produced by the following six Russian gold and silver producers: JSC Krastsvetmet (gold and silver), JSC Novosibirsk Refinery (gold and silver), JSC Uralelectromed (gold and silver), Moscow Special Alloys Processing Plant (gold), Prioksky Plant of Non-Ferrous Metals (gold and silver), and Shyolkovsky Factory of Secondary Precious Metals, SOE (gold and silver) will likely provoke a response from Russia. After the LBMA banned Russian produced gold and silver bars from their markets, the CME followed suit just hours later, in this CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) press release, and issued a ban on all Russian gold and silver bars from their inventory that was almost identical to the LBMA’s specifications, stating that they would allow all Russian manufactured bars delivered to COMEX vaults before 7 March 2022 to retain their “good for delivery” status in COMEX’s New York and Delaware vaults.
So CME and LBMA have banned any gold coming from Russia, but will allow trade of gold that was originally sourced in Russia that is already in their vaults.
When you go to buy your mother a gold bracelet on Mother's Day, do you care that some of the gold in that bracelet might have come from Novosibirsk, from some dental work extracted at Dachau in 1943, or recently mined by an "exploited" African at Ikantha mines in Ghana?
I guess LBMA, CME and Auric Goldfinger care:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTBvu-fTTIk
China doesn't care. They are happy to receive gold from Novosibirsk:
Per the Western economic sanctions levied on Russian gold, the SGE’s own requirements, which have not been altered as of 11 March 2022, would invalidate all Russian manufactured gold bars from their inventory as well. However, as of today, the SGE has not released any “official” statement, as have the LBMA and CME, that will not accept Russian bars into their vaults in the future. So, perhaps, the SGE may alter their gold bar specifications for their inventory to continue accepting Russian gold bars in the future.
As an aside, LBMA, CME and COMEX all allow naked shorting of gold and silver. SGE requires physical metal on hand to short. Unlike LBMA, CME and COMEX, the SGE also requires members to hold physical metal; no one can be a member of the SGE unless they can bring metal.