REUTERS
Ukraine will under no circumstances give Russia the privilege regarding $3 billion debt restructuring, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said during a joint press conference with International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde, who was in Ukraine on a working visit.
"I can only support the position of the IMF and say that Ukraine will grant no privileges to the Russian loan under any circumstances. Russia had every opportunity to join the negotiations, we were open. This possibility is not closed now, but under no circumstances Russia is put into more privileged conditions than other creditors," Poroshenko said.
According to Poroshenko, Russia should decide for itself.
"I am sure that the successful completion of negotiations didn’t allow Russia to see our default, which they had expected. The default would give them an opportunity to demand payment of debt," Poroshenko said.
As UNIAN reported earlier, on August 27, Ukraine agreed with creditors on the restructuring its sovereign debt worth $18 billion with a 20% haircut after five months of talks.
Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko reached an accord with a Franklin Templeton-led ad hoc creditors' committee that includes a 20% writedown of the face value of about $18 billion of eurobonds, the first of which matures in less than a month. The agreement also pushes back redemption dates by four years and sets interest at 7.75% on all maturities, according to an e-mailed statement from the Finance Ministry. Russia is being offered the same terms as private bondholders.
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that Russia was not planning to participate in the restructuring of Ukraine's sovereign debt.