Ukraine Says it Can’t Pay off Debt to Russian Federation
Russian Federation is sorry Ukraine has preferred default to talks, Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said commenting on Kyiv’s announcing of moratorium on settling debt to Russian Federation.
Moscow and Kyiv have been locked in a bitter showdown over a Russian $3 billion loan granted to the pro-Moscow regime of ex-president Viktor Yanukovych in December 2013, not long before he was ousted and fled to Russia. One deputy a week ago lifted Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk from the rostrum and dragged him out, sparking a fistfight involving a few dozen members of parliament.
The moratorium will be in place “until the acceptance of our restructuring proposals or the adoption of the relevant court decision…”
Poroshenko, for his part, added: “Today the president of Russia for the first time publicly admitted the presence of Russian military in the occupied eastern part of Ukraine”.
Ukraine has to repay the loan by December 20.
Ukraine is about to default on a $3 billion loan and its creditor, Russia, says it is prepared to go to global court. But, separately, the Washington-based lender criticized Ukraine’s parliament Friday, accusing it of all but scuttling a tax-overhaul plan needed to unlock much-needed IMF funds.
“I remind you that Ukraine has agreed to restructure its debt obligations with responsible creditors, who accepted the terms of the Ukrainian side”.
Despite this, a default “does feed into broader concerns that the country’s International Monetary Fund programme is now at risk”, William Jackson, senior emerging markets economist for Capital Economics, said in a research note.
Speaking on 17 December during his annual end-of-the-year press conference in Moscow, Putin insisted that these were “military specialists” and not regular Russian troops.
In a statement Thursday, the Ukrainian finance ministry said it was forbidden from repaying the Russian bond under the terms of its August debt restructuring.
It’s the latest spat between the two neighbours following a run of gas supply disputes, Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.