Medvedev is awaiting Ukraine's default / Photo from UNIAN
Ukraine "owes" $25 billion to Russian commercial banks, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia will sue Ukraine to recover commercial debts, Medvedev said at a meeting with Putin, an UNIAN correspondent in Russia reported.
Putin in turn demanded that Medvedev take the situation with the payment of Ukraine's sovereign eurobonds worth $3 billion to Russia under his control.
Medvedev said that "the future of not only sovereign debt [owed to Russia], but also commercial debt estimated at about $25 billion" [owed to Russian commercial banks] is important to Russia. According to him, a large part of Ukraine's debts comes from Russian commercial banks, where the main stockholder is the state. "So, in any case, we'll have to monitor what has been happening there," Medvedev said.
In his words, even if the Russian state isn't a stockholder, the point at issue are large-sized Russian banks.
"In fact, it is the announcement of default, coupled with the declaration of a force majeure situation, on the respective obligations. In this situation, both the Russian state and Russian commercial banks have to adequately respond to all this. In any case, if such a decision has been taken, all the possible means of protection, including judicial ones, should be used to [recover] the commercial debt," Medvedev said.
As was reported, the former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in December 2013 agreed with Russia on issuing a $15 billion loan to Ukraine. Before Yanukovych fled, his government headed by Mykola Azarov had managed to receive $3 billion from Moscow.
On May 19, 2015, Ukraine's parliament commissioned the Cabinet of Ministers to introduce a moratorium on the payment of foreign debts to private creditors, having limited the term for decision-making on this to July 1, 2016.