Ukraine says it won’t repay $3-B debt to Russian Federation
Payments are frozen “until our propositions on restructuring are accepted or until a relevant court decision is made”, he said.
“I stress, once again, that we are ready for a legal process with the Russian side”, he said. But Russia has refused to accept the terms it has offered, arguing that the bond was an official bilateral loan.
Ukrainian Finance Minister Nataliya Yaresko said late Friday she hoped the dispute could still be resolved but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov discounted that possibility, saying “there is only the court prospect”.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation head Jens Stoltenberg, speaking as he met Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at North Atlantic Treaty Organisation headquarters in Brussels, said on Thursday that Putin’s remarks confirmed what the US-led military alliance believed all along – that Russian Federation had a military presence in eastern Ukraine.
The moratorium also applies to about $507 million owed to Russian banks by two state-run companies, according to Yatsenyuk.
Storchak told reporters that Ukraine’s move would not change Russia’s plan to take Ukraine to court once the grace period on the debt payment expired.
Cash-strapped Kyiv is in dire need of further global funding and was required by the IMF to restructure a total of 15.3 billion of debt to unlock the next installment of the 17.5 billion aid package.
It followed the overthrow of a Moscow-allied president in Kyiv and Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in what grew to be the biggest spat between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.
William Jackson, an emerging markets analyst at Capital Economics, said the implications of the moratorium were unclear. On Friday the International Monetary Fund warned that the program was under threat from apparent rejection by parliament of critical tax amendments and the draft 2016 budget.
Nevertheless, he used a conciliatory tone at times when addressing Russia’s relations with Ukraine Georgia within the marathon appearance in that lasted over three hours. Kyiv and the West have accused Russia of sending regular troops to eastern Ukraine to buttress the Russian-speaking insurgency while Moscow has repeatedly denied the claim.