"This is ridiculous.

They seized our money in their financial institutions and believe that we have defaulted,” the senator said.

He added that "the default actually came from Western countries."

“It turns out that they are unable to return our money.

So they should declare a default, but we don’t have a default, ”Tsekov concluded.

Earlier, Bloomberg wrote that Russia is “hours away” from defaulting on its external debt due to restrictions imposed by Western countries.

On Monday night, the grace period for paying about $100 million in overdue payments on government bonds expired.

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that Europe and the United States are creating artificial barriers for Russia to service its public debt in order to label it "default".