This morning Bloomberg are reporting that:

Russia’s central bank may switch some of its reserves from U.S. Treasuries to International Monetary Fund bonds, the bank’s first deputy chairman, Alexei Ulyukayev, said in Moscow today. His comments were confirmed by a bank official who declined to be named, citing bank policy. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said last month that Russia planned to buy $10 billion of IMF bonds using money from its foreign reserves.

And then I recalled about a week ago reading this:

Russian Agricultural Bank, the state- owned lender to the farming industry, plans to sell dollar bonds in the first offering by a Russian lender to foreign investors this year. The issue by Rosselkhozbank, as the Moscow-based lender is also known, follows OAO Gazprom’s $2.25 billion sale in April, Russia’s only other dollar bond deal of 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Rosselkhozbank hasn’t set the maturity of its notes, according to a banker involved in the transaction, who declined to be identified before the deal is completed.

Rosselkhozbank hired Barclays Capital and Citigroup Inc. to organize the sale, said the banker. The lender is rated Baa1 by Moody’s Investors Service, the third-lowest investment-grade ranking, and one level lower at BBB by Fitch Ratings. Vnesheconombank, the nation’s state development bank, is planning a $2 billion sale of one-year notes tomorrow that will be privately placed with Russian commercial lenders and the central bank. The sale of 10-year notes by Gazprom, Russia’s gas export monopoly, was the country’s biggest-ever corporate bond offering and the first in dollars since July, Bloomberg data show.

So, if I understand things aright, you first borrow a lot of money in a given currency, and then you wind up a discourse which forces the currency you have borrowed the mony in on an ever downward path. I guess this is what they call “win-win” in Moscow.

Treasuries fell, pushing 10-year yields to the highest level since November, as the government prepared to sell $19 billion in the securities and Russia said it may switch some of its reserves from U.S. debt. Ten-year notes extended earlier losses after the first deputy chairman of Russia’s central bank said the nation may buy International Monetary Fund bonds. Today’s auction is the second of three sales this week that will raise $65 billion as part of the government’s record borrowing program.