Russia’s Finance Ministry: It will meet its debt obligations in full and in a timely manner

The Russian Finance Ministry assured markets that it will meet its debt obligations in full and in a timely manner, in a statement on Monday.

Additional quotes

“It has approved temporary foreign currency debt repayment procedure.”

“It will issue payment orders to correspondent banks for making payments in foreign currency but its ability to proceed with those payments will depend on sanctions.”

“If foreign correspondent banks can't make the payments, payments will be made in Russian roubles.”

“It has enough funds to meet its debt obligations.”

“Move to freeze Russia’s reserves can be seen as intention to trigger artificial default on Russian debt.”

Market reaction

USD/RUB is little changed on these above headlines, trading better bid around 133.00.