WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF RUSSIA DEFAULTS ON ITS DEBT? WASHINGTON — Russia is ambling toward a major default on its foreign debt, a grim milestone that it has not seen since the Bolshevik Revolution more t
WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF RUSSIA DEFAULTS ON ITS DEBT? WASHINGTON — Russia is ambling toward a major default on its foreign debt, a grim milestone that it has not seen since the Bolshevik Revolution more t
WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF RUSSIA DEFAULTS ON ITS DEBT?
WASHINGTON — Russia is ambling toward a major default on its foreign debt, a grim milestone that it has not seen since the Bolshevik Revolution more than a century ago and one that raises the prospect of years of legal wrangling and a global hunt by bondholders for Russian assets.
The looming default is the result of sanctions that have immobilized about half of Russia’s $640 billion of foreign currency reserves, straining the country’s ability to make bond repayments in the currency the debt was issued in — dollars. Girding for a default, Russia has already pre-emptively dismissed it as an “artificial” result of sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies, and it has threatened to contest such an outcome in court.
The coming fight, which would probably pit Russia against big investors from around the world, raises murky questions over who gets to decide if a nation has actually defaulted in the rare case where sanctions have curbed a country’s ability to pay its debts.
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