The Kremlin, which has the money to make payments thanks to oil and gas revenues, quickly dismissed claims that it was leading Western countries into an “artificial default”.

A U.S. official said Monday that the default shows how much sanctions are affecting Russia’s economy. “This morning’s news of Russia’s default discovery for the first time in over a century confirms the strength of the measures taken by the US and its allies and the impact it has had on the Russian economy,” he said. US power at G7 summit in Germany.

According to Reuters, some bondholders have previously said they did not receive interest accrued on Monday after a major payment deadline.

Russia has been struggling to meet its $ 40 billion bond payments since its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, as tough sanctions severed the country’s global economy and many investors were unable to touch its assets.

What does the Russian government say?

The Kremlin quickly dismissed allegations of blaming and misrepresenting Westerners. Russia says the default is fraudulent because it prevents sanctions on holders of foreign bonds, and Russia says it has money to pay.

In a call to reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia had completed bond payments in May, but that the blocking of the euroclear by Western sanctions against Russia was “not a problem.”

The Kremlin reiterated that Russia had no reason to default, but could not send money to bondholders because of sanctions, and accused the West of trying to deceive it into an artificial default.

Russia’s efforts to avoid the first major fall in international bonds since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1918 have become an insurmountable problem, with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets effectively blocking Moscow from making payments payments in late May.

“We have been thinking since March that a Russian default is inevitable, when is the question,” Dennis Hranitsky, head of the sovereign litigation of the law firm Quinn Emanuel, told Reuters ahead of Sunday’s deadline.

A formal default would be largely symbolic, as Russia can no longer borrow internationally, and need not do so because of oil and gas export earnings. But the stain will increase your borrowing costs in the future.

The payments in question are $ 100 million in interest on two bonds, one in dollars and the other in euros, due by Russia on May 27. Payments had a grace period of 30 days, which expired on Sunday.

Russia’s Finance Ministry says it has paid in euros and dollars to its National Settlement Depository (NSD).

Sources told Reuters on Monday that some Taiwanese bondholders had not received their payments.

Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online.

Credit rating agencies usually downgrade a country’s rating to reflect the default, but this does not apply to Russia, as most agencies do not rate the country.

The British government said on Sunday that Britain, the United States, Japan and Canada would ban new imports of Russian gold, in another step to extend sanctions on Moscow.