No, Your TSP Money Isn’t Invested in Russia

With wall-to-wall news focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last week, and ever escalating sanctions against the Russian government and corporations, it would be only natural for federal employees and retirees to wonder about their exposure to investments in Russia as part of their participation in the federal government’s 401(k)-style retirement savings program.

As it turns out, aside from the invasion’s widespread reverberations throughout the global economy and financial sector—most of the Thrift Savings Plan’s funds reported a down month in February—there hasn’t been a direct impact for TSP participants.

The TSP’s international (I) fund is based on the MSCI EAFE index, which is made up of investments across 21 developed countries. None of those investments are based in Russia. TSP spokeswoman Kim Weaver confirmed Wednesday that no TSP funds have any Russian holdings.

The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which administers the TSP, did briefly plan to shift the I Fund to a market index that includes Russian investments, but the board postponed that decision following political pressure from Republican lawmakers and the Trump administration because the index also tracked Chinese corporations.

Weaver said any consideration of a new index for the I Fund remains on hold indefinitely.

But even if the TSP had adopted the more comprehensive MSCI All Country World Ex-US Investable Market Index, it’s unclear that feds would be invested in Russian companies—at least not for long. Since Russia invaded Ukraine last week, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has rolled out a series of sanctions barring Americans from engaging in transactions with different sectors of the Russian economy.

And officials at MSCI have reportedly described the Russian market as “uninvestable” and said they are currently considering cutting Russian investments out of the All World index altogether.