Russia Says Clears Last Soviet Debt With Payment To Bosnia

Russia says it has settled the last of the foreign debt it inherited from the Soviet Union when the U.S.S.R. collapsed more than a quarter-century ago.

The Finance Ministry said on August 22 that the government had paid Bosnia-Herzegovina $125.2 million, which was due under trade deals between the Soviet Union and another now-defunct state, Yugoslavia.

A statement said Moscow settled the debt with Bosnia on August 8, adding that the country was "the last foreign state creditor of the former U.S.S.R....for which the debt was still outstanding."

Russia and Bosnia signed an agreement to settle the debt in Moscow in March, the ministry said.

Russia assumed the entire foreign debt of the Soviet Union, estimated at around $70 billion, after it dissolved in December 1991.

In 2006, bolstered by high oil and gas prices, Russia reimbursed $22 billion to the Paris Club, a group of 17 creditor governments from major industrialized countries.

Based on reporting by AFP and TASS