Moscow: Freezing Russia’s foreign currency accounts is West’s bid to organize artificial default

Russia sees the freeze of its government foreign currency accounts as an attempt by the West to organize an artificial default, said Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.

“Statements that Russia cannot fulfill its obligations under the public debt are not true. We have the necessary amount of funds to service our obligations. The freezing of foreign currency accounts of Russia’s Central Bank and the government of the Russian Federation can be regarded as a desire of a number of foreign countries to organize an artificial default, while not having real economic grounds for this,” said Siluanov, in a statement released by the Ministry of Finance.

We are also ready to make payments in rubles at the exchange rate of the Bank of Russia on the date of payment. Moreover, for Eurobond issues issued since 2018, such an opportunity was laid down directly in the issuance documents,” the minister added.

 Moscow’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine to demilitarise and de-Nazify the country has triggered tough sanctions imposed by the US and its allies targeting key sectors of the Russian economy, export control and export financing, visa policy and Russian individuals

Russia began a special operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine on 24 February after weeks of escalating shelling, sabotage and sniper attacks by Ukrainian forces against the Donbass republics, whose predominantly Russian-speaking population has been subjected to “abuse, genocide… for eight years.”

Source: Sputnik