Ukraine’s Naftogaz sends prepayment to Russian Federation for gas
Russia plans to go to court if Ukraine fails to repay its Dollars 3 billion debt by the end of the year, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has told the Rossiya-24 TV channel, Russian news agency TASS has reported.
“We have a firm position, no compromises”.
Siluanov earlier said he was against restructuring Ukraine’s debt.
Last month, Ukraine reached an 18-billion dollar debt restructuring deal, after the United States, a number of European countries and a few of Ukraine’s private creditors agreed to write down as much as 20 percent of Kyiv’s debt. Ukraine has said that all of its debt holders should be treated equally.
The talks, brokered by Germany, were held on the sidelines of the global Monetary Fund and World Bank semi-annual meeting and were attended by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.
Moscow is open to discussing handing over to Kyiv a Ukrainian pilot charged with the murder of two journalists once there is a verdict in her trial, the Russian justice minister said on Friday, in contrast to previous statements.
“Colleagues from the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance said that they had no such money in the budget and invited us to participate in the restructuring, together with commercial lenders”, Siluanov said.