The increasingly likely default by Russia does not play a major role on the financial markets.

On the stock market, the Dax gained more than 2 percent on Monday.

This is noteworthy because Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov prepared the financial markets for this credit event in a television interview on Sunday.

He said Russia will service its debt in rubles as long as Western sanctions blocked access to foreign currency over Ukraine's invasion.

Markus Fruehauf

Editor in Business.

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According to his statement, Russia currently does not have access to foreign exchange reserves in the amount of 300 billion dollars.

Most of these are likely to be holdings held by the Russian central bank in the west.

Overall, Russia has foreign exchange reserves of 640 billion dollars.

According to the American investment bank JP Morgan, Russia must make the interest payments of 117 million dollars due on Wednesday in the American currency and not in rubles.

Ruble payments do not prevent failure

Jochen Felsenheimer, Managing Director of the Munich asset manager Xaia Investment, also sees it this way: "But if the payment is only made in rubles and nothing changes after the 30-day grace period has expired, this represents a default." Then the CDS contracts would due.

These are credit default insurances that creditors can use to protect themselves against default.

Russia's premium on this credit default swap (CDS) has shot up from 5 percentage points to 38 percentage points since the start of the war.

For a claim of 1 million euros against the Russian state, an annual premium of 380,000 euros would be due.

Such protection no longer pays off, because the policyholder has to pay an upfront fee of EUR 600,000 to conclude such a contract.

Asset manager Pimco, which specializes in bonds, is likely to follow developments with interest.

According to a report in the Financial Times, the American subsidiary of Allianz insurance group holds more than $1.5 billion in Russian government bonds and has sold $1 billion worth of CDS contracts on Russia.

In the event of a default, Pimco would therefore have to compensate policyholders.

This did not affect Allianz's share price on Monday.

The title gained more than 3 percent in value.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is also preparing for a Russian default.

Its managing director Kristalina Georgiewa considers this event "no longer improbable".

"Russia has the money to service the debt, but it doesn't have access to it," she said.

The devaluation of the ruble has already led to the fact that the purchasing power of the people in Russia has "shrunk significantly".

At the moment, however, she does not see the danger that a failure could trigger a global financial crisis.

The banks' total exposure to Russia of around $120 billion is not insignificant, but "not systemically relevant".

Before the war began, 75 rubles had to be paid for a dollar, on Monday it was 120 rubles.

"In Moscow, the ruble is around 8 percent stronger than on the international markets," says Stefan Grothaus, an analyst at DZ Bank.

On the one hand, this difference can be explained by the capital controls, which are intended to curb the flight from the ruble.

On the other hand, Russian companies would have to exchange 80 percent of their export earnings in rubles, which means higher demand, says Grothaus.