Western Financial Interests Plan Next Wave of Theft of Russian Assets Abroad

April 17, 2022 (EIRNS)—Moody’s issued a statement on Friday, April 15, pronouncing that Russia’s early April payment on two bonds in rubles, rather than in dollars, “may be considered a default.” The rating agency pronounced that “The bond contracts have no provision for repayment in any other currency other than dollars,” and that the payments constituted “a change in payment terms relative to the original bond contracts and therefore may be considered a default under Moody’s definition if not cured by May 4, which is the end of the grace period,” Moody’s said in a press release.

S&P had made a similar statement last week, downgrading Russian debt and saying the country was in “selective default.”

The blood-suckers of the City of London and Wall Street are loudly licking their chops. Business Insider reports comments by Tatiana Orlova, lead emerging markets economist at Oxford Economics, a major British consulting firm, that Russia’s creditors will likely move to formalize the “freezing” of Russian assets into outright “seizure.” However, since Ukraine may also file to be given some of the funds for “reconstruction,” there may be a decision to divide up the booty. “The U.S. administration could possibly find a stronger moral cause for splitting the U.S.-denominated portion of Russia’s FX [foreign exchange] reserves between Ukraine and bondholders,” Orlova said. The model is what was done in Afghanistan.

Orlova also said there is likely to be an “avalanche” of Russian corporate debt defaults, on top of the government bond defaults, since the sanctions are making it impossible for American banks to process payments even when they are made. This happened last week with Russian Railways, which was declared in default by its creditor banks since they could not collect on the payments made. Business Insider reports that there were about $98 billion of Russian corporate foreign-currency bonds outstanding as of February 2022, according to JPMorgan.