Norway’s $1.3tn oil fund will dump its Russian investments as part of a wider package of support for Ukraine, highlighting how the international financial pressure on Moscow is being ratcheted up.
Norges Bank Investment Management, the sovereign wealth fund housed inside Norway’s central bank, has been instructed to immediately freeze all new investments in Russia and to begin to unwind its existing $3bn worth of Russian holdings, according to a statement from the Norwegian government on Sunday evening.
“Russia’s attack on Ukraine has challenged Europe’s security in a way we have not seen since the second world war,” said Jonas Gahr Støre, Norway’s prime minister. “It challenges our norms, our values and the principles that our democratic society is based on.”