OREANDA-NEWS   By January 1, 2023, the Russian external debt reached $381 billion. Since the beginning of 2022, its volumes have decreased by more than 20 percent — by $ 100.4 billion, the Central Bank said in a statement.

"The dynamics of the indicator is largely due to a decrease in the external debt of other sectors on loans," the publication clarifies.

In the summer of 2022, first Bloomberg and then Moody's announced that Russia had defaulted on external debt obligations: holders of Eurobonds did not receive coupon payments in the amount of $ 100 million. The Ministry of Finance of Russia, in turn, explained the situation by the actions of third parties and refused to recognize the default.

They indicated that they had made payments even before the United States decided at the end of May to terminate the validity of the general license allowing Moscow to service its debt in foreign currency. In response to these actions by Washington, since June 2022, Russia has provided itself with the opportunity to service the external public debt in rubles in accordance with the presidential decree.

In September last year, the head of the Russian Ministry of Finance Anton Siluanov said that Russia now plans to attract borrowed funds exclusively on the domestic market. Government borrowing, as indicated in the government, will be the main source of covering the budget deficit in the coming years. Last year, the Russian budget faced a deficit of 3.3 trillion rubles.