The head of the foreign policy planning department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alexei Drobinin, described the dollar as little more than a trust instrument and emphasized that steps to reduce its role as the primary vehicle for international settlements and capital movements are ongoing. He outlined these views in a report published by the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies in its journal Problems of National Strategy, where the topic of dedollarization is analyzed in depth.
The diplomat argued that the United States has increasingly leveraged its economic and financial tools in ways that contribute to a crisis in the Western model of globalization. He cited ongoing sanction regimes, manipulation of currency and stock markets, and even direct involvement in the internal affairs of other states as examples of this trend, highlighting how such actions are shaping global market dynamics and policy decisions around the world.
Drobinin pointed to the enormous scale of the U.S. public debt, which has surpassed 31 trillion dollars and stands at roughly 98 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. He expressed the view that the United States will find it difficult to service or repay this debt under current policy trajectories, a concern that has implications for confidence in the dollar as a reserve asset and for international financial stability.
Historical data from the International Monetary Fund show a long-term decline in the share of the dollar in global reserve holdings. In 1999 the dollar accounted for about 71 percent of reserves, by 2015 the share had fallen to around 66 percent, and by the start of 2022 it was approximately 58.9 percent, signaling a gradual diversification of official reserves among central banks and a growing interest in alternative assets and currencies.
Earlier discussions have noted that researchers from Russia’s National Research University Higher School of Economics have published analytical materials addressing dedollarization and its potential effects on the world economy, underscoring a broader scholarly debate about the future configuration of global monetary order and the resilience of credible, diversified monetary frameworks across major economies.