Kyiv won’t repay debt because ‘they are crooks’ – Russian PM
Russian Federation refuses to accede to the agreement reached with private creditors waiver, arguing that mature in December foreign currency borrowing would be treated as intergovernmental and non-private credit werden.Ein billion debt forgiveness by creditors is part of an worldwide aid package of 40 billion dollars for the Ukraine.
The two-year Eurobond was taken out by the government of Moscow-backed ex-president Viktor Yanukovich just two months before he fled to Russian Federation in February 2014 in the face of street protests over his policy swerve away from deeper integration into the European mainstream.
But Siluanov said that Russian Federation did not plan to leave the Fund and that in general the IMF was conducting the “right policy”.
Medvedev said in an interview on state television Wednesday he had a sense that “they won’t pay it back because they are crooks”, accusing Western countries to “interfere” in the matter.
Ukraine’s security service said on Thursday it had broken up an armed insurgent group that operated out of Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities and that two people had been killed during the operation.
The Kremlin sharply criticized the Washington-based lender’s decision to continue supporting Ukraine even if it failed to repay official creditors.
Moscow initially wanted repayment of the Eurobond in full and on time this month, but then Putin unexpectedly made his offer of softer terms.
“Russia put forward an offer for restructuring… unfortunately our interlocutors have not accepted this initiative”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“They washed their hands and said – let it pay on its own”. “We will seek a default on the loan”. “Essentially, this reform boils down to the following: since Ukraine is politically important – and it is only important because it is opposed to Russian Federation – the International Monetary Fund is ready to do for Ukraine everything it has not done for anyone else, and the situation that should 100 percent mean a default will be seen as a situation enabling the International Monetary Fund to finance Ukraine”, the minister said.
“Russia can not and will not receive conditions for restructuring different than the other creditors received”, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said, as cited by the FT. “We are well-armed for a fight”, he added.