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Bastian Brinkmann and Jan Diesteldorf
The clock is ticking: the Russian state will soon be considered insolvent – because the Kremlin will probably not repay the loan tranches that are due. “The vast majority of investors assume that they will default,” says Christoph Trebesch. The economist from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy is an international expert when it comes to national bankruptcies. After the attack on Ukraine, many investors abruptly withdrew from Russian government bonds, and prices in US trading plummeted. “You don’t often see such drastic price falls,” says Trebesch.