Moscow (30/06 – 22.22) Russia on Monday denied claims that it had defaulted on its foreign debts.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in his daily press conference that reports of Moscow defaulting were baseless, and blamed Western sanctions for any delays to payment processing.
His reaction came after Bloomberg reported that the Kremlin had defaulted on its foreign currency debts for the first time since 1918, in the wake of the Bolshevik revolution.
Russia also defaulted on its national debt under Boris Yeltsin in 1998, triggering a financial crisis.
A grace period for interest payments on two eurobonds worth nearly $100 million came to an end on Sunday, but the Kremlin on Monday insisted that the money was transferred to clearing house Euroclear in May.
The Kremlin added that the fact that these payments were held or not delivered was “not our problem.”
“There is no basis to call this situation a default,” Peskov said.
