Russia in historic foreign debt default, reports suggest

Key Facts

• Russia has the money to make a $100m payment and is willing to pay, but sanctions made it impossible to get the payments to international creditors.
• The Kremlin had been determined to avoid the default, which is a major blow to the nation's prestige.
• The last time Russia defaulted on its foreign debt was in 1918, during the Bolshevik Revolution when the new communist leader Vladimir Lenin refused to pay the debts of the Russian Empire.
• Because Russia wants to pay and has plenty of money to do it, he denied that this amounts to a genuine default, which usually occur when governments refuse to pay, or their economies are so weak that they cannot find the money.

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