It won't get worse... What a "technical default" threatens the country with

Economist Dmitry Prokofiyev explains what this threatens Russia with:

Is there a lot of money there? To the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, these payments are like “a penny from the ruble” to us, even less. Until the end of the year, the financial authorities of the Russian Federation must pay about $1 billion on Eurobonds, while Russian oil exporters alone receive about $20 billion a month.

When and how much to pay? Formally, the nearest payments on eurobonds (a coupon for €26.5 million on euro-denominated bonds and $71.25 million on dollar bonds) are due on May 27. The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation transferred this money in advance, on May 20 (but it is not known whether these payments managed to reach the addressees).

The next payment for $235 million is due on June 23. And if this payment "does not go through", then after 30 days (the so-called grace period), bondholders will be able to demand a default.

What will this mean in practice? Formally, “it won’t get worse,” and no one in the Western markets will lend anything to the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation anyway (and the Ministry of Finance does not ask). But, politically, this is unpleasant - the Russian Federation also has money, there is also a desire to pay its debts, but creditors have no desire to accept this money - "default, so default."

But the citizens of the Russian Federation have the most negative attitude towards the word “default”, no one has forgotten the “crisis of 1998”, according to various polls, almost three out of four Russians remember everything that happened in August 1998, and half of them remember the events of that time is extremely negative.

The authorities have a complex attitude to the word "default" in this situation. The magic spell "default" makes it possible in one fell swoop to attribute all economic troubles to the machinations of "partners". On the other hand, magic spells should be used with caution - the current masters of the country came to power at the turn of the 2000s precisely on the wave of events largely provoked by the then "default-98". Therefore, the authorities will still rest on the purely technical nature of a possible “default-22”

But who will probably use the word "default" is the "Chinese partners". For them, even a hundred times the formal "technical" declaration of default by the Russian Federation is a 100% reason to raise the price of their cooperation, both "real" and nominal.