REUTERS
The International Monetary Fund could give Ukraine an additional $3 billion loan so that Kyiv could use the money to repay the debt to Russia, Putin said this at a meeting with the government, instructing Finance Minister Anton Siluanov to continue contacts with the IMF and the Ukrainian government, according to Russia’s RBC news agency.
"You should talk to your colleagues. It seems to me that it would be easier to make it this way: give Ukraine another $3 billion so that it can pay, and everyone would be happy and work without such tension. Because if there is no rules in favor of one of the states, there may come demands to change such rules for the other states. And where will it lead? These issues should be discussed in a calm working mode and try to find a decision, so that all the problems were not put on our shoulders," said Putin on Tuesday.
According to him, the Russian authorities could have long demanded early repayment of the debt, however, they did not do this, not to put "our Ukrainian partners" in an even more difficult position.
"But let them return our money," said Putin.
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% ($3.8 bln) writedown of the face value of about $18 billion of Eurobonds, the pushback of payment terms on the $11.5 bln body of a loan by four years, setting an interest at 7.75% on all maturities.
Russia has been offered the same terms as private bondholders.
On September 23, the Ukrainian government launched the restructuring process of Ukraine's public and government-guaranteed debt and its write-off. The restructuring deal is planned to be completed by December 1, 2015. To complete the debt restructuring process, the Ukrainian government announced a halt to debt servicing payments. Moreover, the temporary suspension of payments is said to be a technical one, affecting nine out of 14 series of government domestic loan bonds and government-backed Eurobonds of state enterprise Fininpro included in the restructuring deal, as well as Eurobonds maturing in September and October 2015.
The restructuring perimeter also includes a loan which Ukraine received in the framework of agreements between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President at the time Viktor Yanukovych. The loan was granted on December, 2013, in exchange for Ukrainian Eurobonds worth $3 billion. The fact that the bonds were purchased via the Irish stock exchange makes the disbursement a private creditor debt. However, the Russian side insists that this is an interstate debt, as the buyer was a state-owned National Wealth Fund.
Commenting on the agreement with the creditors, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said 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.
In response, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov stated that Kyiv's failure to pay back its debt on $3 billion eurobonds would be treated as Ukraine's default on its obligations and Russia would apply to the arbitration court.