FILE PHOTO: Russian Rouble banknote is placed on U.S. Dollar banknotes in this illustration taken, February 24, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
March 15, 2022
(Reuters) – Russia is due to pay $117 million in interest on two dollar-denominated sovereign bonds on Wednesday – the first such payments since its invasion of Ukraine which sparked a raft of sanctions from Western capitals and countermeasures from Moscow.
Russia’s finance ministry said on Monday it had sent an order to a correspondent bank for the payment of coupons on eurobonds amounting to $117.2 million which are due on Wednesday.
The diplomatic standoff and economic curbs have sparked questions over whether and how Russia will make the payment, raising the spectre of its first major external debt default since 1917, when Bolsheviks failed to recognise Tsarist debt in the wake of the revolution….
