REUTERS
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Friday that Russia was worried that reforms to the International Monetary Fund's lending rules were being forced through in the context of the "very politicized" question of Ukraine's debt restructuring, according to Reuters.
Siluanov also told journalists that Ukraine had refused to consider any alternatives apart from equating Ukraine's debt to Russia with debt before private creditors, Reuters reports.
As UNIAN reported earlier, the IMF Board is set toconsider the change in lending policies in late November after leaders from the Group of 20 largest economies meet in Turkey.
Ukraine's restructuring perimeter includes a loan which was granted to Ukraine in the framework of agreements between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the then Ukrainian President 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. Ukraine has included the $3 billion eurobond among the sovereign and sovereign-guaranteed bonds to be restructured, butRussia reiterated it does not see the debt as commercial.
Read alsoPutin tests English Debt Law as Ukraine feud heads to LondonUkraine and the ad hoc creditors' committee on August 27 agreed on restructuring part of sovereign debt to the tune of $18 billion. The restructuring involves a complete write-off of $3 billion, a four-year deferral of principal debt repayment, as well as the establishment of a single 7.75% interest rate for the bonds.