This document package is built to fact-check one specific and widely repeated claim: that India started dumping U.S. Treasuries because Russia’s foreign exchange reserves were frozen after the Ukraine war.

When you look at the actual data and graphs, that story simply doesn’t hold.

What the graphs clearly show

Graph 1: India’s U.S. Treasury holdings (long-term timeline)

This graph shows that India’s holdings actually rose after the Russia–Ukraine war, reaching record highs. There is no sudden sell-off after 2022, directly contradicting the “panic after reserve freeze” narrative.

Graph 2: Month-by-month holdings highlighting the turning point

This graph makes the timing unmistakable: the decline in holdings starts only around 2024–25, not in 2022. When plotted properly, the Ukraine war period shows stability, not exit.

Graph 3: Event-aligned graph with policy markers

Here, major events are marked on the timeline. You can clearly see that the fall in holdings lines up with tariff announcements and trade actions, not with geopolitical shocks like the Ukraine invasion.

Graph 4: Volatility of U.S. Treasury holdings over time

This graph shows that volatility actually fell after the Ukraine war and rose only around 2025, further weakening the claim that 2022 triggered fear-driven dumping.

Graph 5: Gold reserves – physical quantity vs value

This graph separates how much gold India actually bought from how much its value increased. It shows that most of the rise in gold reserves comes from higher prices, not massive physical buying.

Graph 6: Decomposition of changes in gold reserves

This graph breaks reserve changes into two parts: quantity and price. It makes clear that only a small share of the increase is due to buying gold, while the majority is explained by price movements.

What this proves, clearly and directly

Linking RBI’s actions to the Russia–Ukraine reserve freeze is data-incorrect
India’s U.S. Treasury holdings rose after the war; they did not fall
The actual decline begins in 2024–25 and aligns with tariffs, not geopolitics

This package includes:

All datasets used in the analysis
The R scripts used to generate every graph
The final graphs, exactly as shown and explained

Everything is transparent and reproducible. No screenshots. No selective time windows. No storytelling without evidence.

If you want to move beyond sensational claims and see what really changed, when it changed, and why, this package gives you the full picture—clearly, calmly, and with data.

— Keshav Bedi