There are a lot of theories as to why central banks, and Russia in particular, are cutting down the gold purchases, but in the case of Russia the reason is simply that they need cash, this according to Jeff Christian, managing partner of CPM Group.
"The Russian government is strapped for cash. It's facing the pandemic that everybody else is facing, but it was slow to move on it so it's got serious problems there. It still has sanctions, it doesn't have a lot of foreign exchange coming in, it's losing money on every barrel of oil that it sold in Russia," Christian told Kitco News. It doesn't have the money to buy gold.