Are Sanctions Working?

This may be the beginning of Russia’s downfall.

By דוד אהרון 8 — Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90112987

Russian Railways is the first to tumble into default since the Ukraine War started. A global financial committee, the Credit Derivatives Determination Committee, ruled that the company has failed to pay interest on $268 million of bonds.

Russian Railways argued that it had met its obligation because it tried to pay but was blocked due to sanctions. The United States and its allies have frozen the central bank of its $600 billion of foreign currency reserves.

Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Deutsche Bank voted affirmative to the motion that the railway had defaulted on its debt.

There is great debate over whether the Russian government is in default after it tried to pay $650 billion in payments last week but was blocked by the U.S. Treasury. The Credit Derivatives Determination Committee is to rule on whether the Russian government is now in default.

Russia has 22 days left in the 30-day grace period to make the payment in dollars.

In less than a month, we will see where this event leads. Given Putin’s radical thinking, there is likely to be a rough road ahead for the entire world.

This story by Sylvain Saurel delves into who owns the Russian debt:

The 7 Big Questions Russia’s Likely Default Raises

And this one by Ecobyvatel ponders the probability of Russia’s default:

What is the probability of default of Russian banks?

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