Finance Minister Anton Siluanov’s remarks to the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper on Monday sharpened Moscow’s tone in its financial wrestling with the West.
Highlights
- Russia will take legal action if the West tries to force it to default on its sovereign debt, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper.
- Russia faces its first sovereign external default in more than a century after it made arrangements to make an international bond repayment in roubles earlier this week, even though the payment was due in U.S.
- dollars.
- Russia has not defaulted on its external debt since the aftermath of its 1917 revolution, but its bonds have now emerged as a flashpoint in its economic tussle with the West.
- Russia’s external liabilities amount to about 20% of the total public debt, which stood at about 21 trillion roubles