The West wants to recognize Russian diamonds as toxic goods

• The European Union, the United States and Canada are calling for the status of “conflict” diamonds to be assigned to Russian diamonds. This is done in order to make it extremely difficult for them to enter the world market, according to The New York Times .

According to the publication, this initiative is due to the fact that the sale of diamonds "helps Russia finance military operations in Ukraine."

As you know, Russia is the world's largest supplier of small diamonds. In 2021, they accounted for more than $4.5 billion of domestic exports, making Russian diamonds one of the country's main non-energy sources of income, the publication reports, citing US government data.

According to journalists, the issue of the new status of Russian diamonds was first raised at a meeting of the UN international organization Kimberley Process in Botswana in June this year. In his speech there, the representative of the US State Department, George Kajati, addressed the Chairman of the Kimberley Process with a proposal to prevent “conflict” or so-called “blood diamonds”, which are mined illegally and used to finance conflicts, from entering the market.

The position of Kajati was then supported by the countries of the European Union, Canada and Ukraine. However, it was not possible to achieve a ban, since this proposal was vetoed by Russia itself, China and Belarus. In addition, Mali and the Central African Republic opposed the US initiative. According to the publication, this is due to the fact that in these countries Russia has "a lot of mercenaries who work in diamond mines."

The Russian Ministry of Finance called the attempt to prevent the sale of diamonds "political demagoguery."

Meanwhile, less than a month ago, Novye Izvestia reported that the volume of sales of Russian diamonds has significantly decreased since the beginning of the special operation. This happened due to the fact that diamond buyers began to request non-Russian goods. Diamond manufacturers themselves noted that the trade in Russian diamonds has slowed down sharply, as this is also due to difficulties in paying for goods from Russia in US dollars.

Major industry players - Signet Jewelers, LVMH (Tiffany) and Richemont - are putting pressure on suppliers. Previously, they pledged not to purchase Russian mined diamonds.