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- Russia faces roughly $100 million in debt payments with a grace period ending June 26, Bloomberg reports.
- The US allowed a payment exemption to expire in May, which has made it difficult for Moscow to pay American holders of Russian debt.
- “We’ve done everything we can to lead the horse to water,” Russia’s finance minister told media.
Roughly $100 million of coupon payments on Russian debt has not yet arrived in creditors’ accounts, Bloomberg reports, with a deadline approaching later this month that could trigger a default.
Moscow aims to pay foreign creditors through unsanctioned banks, even after the US blocked bond payments last month.
Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that the Kremlin still intends to deliver dollar and euro payments to bondholders, though he did not elaborate on a timeline.
Under the proposed plan, Russian bondholders would receive payments after unsanctioned lenders take in ruble payments from Moscow and convert them into other hard currencies.
When asked how Moscow would get its debt through the National Settlement Depository, which the EU has blacklisted, Siluanov replied, “we’ll manage.”
The $100 million in payments have a grace period that expires June 26, per Bloomberg, and if they still haven’t been processed by then, Russia could see its first foreign debt default in a century.
Until last month, an exemption to sanctions on Russia for its war on Ukraine allowed Moscow to send payments through the US financial to American bondholders. But the US Treasury allowed that carve-out to expire on May 25.
At the time, Russia responded by saying the US was forcing an “artificial” default. Moscow officials have maintained that the nation cannot be declared in default because it has shown ongoing willingness to pay.
“We’ve done everything we can to lead the horse to water. But it’s not up to us whether it wants to drink or not,” Siluanov told the media on Thursday.
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