According to the Finance Ministry’s press release, the Russian Federation made the final payments of the Soviet loans to the Czech Republic, Finland, and Montenegro. The amount was $4.08 billion. Russia inherited all the assets and liabilities of the former Soviet Union; thus, it became owing to the European countries. Russia’s government repaid $3.6 billion to the Czech Republic under a 1994 agreement. Montenegro received $18 million in accordance with a treaty from 2007.
Most of the debt to Finland, which is in the Paris Club group of rich creditor nations, was settled in 2005-2006 within the payments (liabilities) to the Club. The rest of $30 million was cleared under an agreement signed in 2006. Russia paid the credits to all three countries mostly in goods and a lesser part was cash repayments.
While Russia is executing the Soviet debt payments, it cannot collect its own credits from other states. One of the recent actions the Russian Federation has taken is an agreement with Cuba. As Reuters reported in early December, citing unknown sources, Moscow took a decision to write off $29 billion of the $32 billion debt. Now Havana is obligated to repay the remaining $3.2 million within the next ten years. In mid-September 2012, Russia canceled North Korea’s borrowings of $11 billion.
