Russian Federation not ready to compromise on Ukraine debt

“If these commitments are kept – if weapons are pulled back and stored, if the OSCE gets in, and legal, monitored elections are negotiated and held, Ukraine will once again have unfettered access to its own people and its territory in the East”, Nuland said.

Moscow is open to discussing handing over to Kiev a Ukrainian pilot charged with the murder of two journalists once there is a verdict in her trial, the Russian justice minister said on Friday, in contrast to previous statements. “One needs to meet, of course, talk, that is always correct and beneficial”, Siluanov told reporters on the sidelines of an worldwide Monetary Fund meeting in Lima, Peru.

Russian Federation has said numerous times that Ukraine must repay the debt in December, when it falls due.

Moscow bought the bonds from Kiev before the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich was ousted early a year ago, opening a rift which widened with the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of the pro-Russian rebellion in eastern Ukraine.

She added: “If it doesn’t accept those terms then we’ll have to work with Ukraine on other options”. “So for us, such conditions are unacceptable”.

Friday’s meeting was brokered by Germany and attended by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. “We want to buy 2 billion cubic metres in October”, a Naftogaz spokeswoman said by telephone, declining to say how much Ukraine had paid.