In an interview for the film “Russia.
The Newest History "of the TV channel" Russia 1 "Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine and several other former republics of the USSR did not give Russia the foreign assets of the USSR, although Moscow fulfilled its obligation and paid off their foreign debts.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, its creditors began to wonder how the debt of a no longer existing country on loans taken earlier would be serviced.
In addition, Soviet property and assets abroad were frozen, they had to be re-registered with new owners.
Gradually, a scheme for the division of debt and assets between the newly formed republics in the post-Soviet space took shape. But it was an extremely difficult task, since it was not easy to calculate the share of each. The calculation method took into account many parameters: the contribution of each republic to the GDP of the USSR, the number of the population, etc. Naturally, not everyone agreed with the results obtained.
However, it was necessary to do this, since the former members of the all-Union family were in dire need of new loans due to the disastrous economic situation.
It was impossible to get them without paying off old loans.
A general agreement on repayment was needed.
Russia, in order to get things off the ground, in the early 1990s decided to take all the debts upon themselves and pay them off individually.
This proposal was accepted with a bang by everyone, except for Ukraine, whose parliament flatly refused to ratify the corresponding agreement.
Foreign assets of the USSR are primarily the property of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: buildings of embassies, trade missions, embassy schools, and so on.
In addition, the colossal debt of the Third World countries, for the most part, amounted to about $ 140 billion. And finally, the funds of Soviet banks abroad and shares of foreign enterprises.
To receive new loans, Russia had to become a member of the Paris Club of Creditors. To join this organization, it was necessary to have a clean track record in terms of the debt of various countries to Russia. As a result, in order to speed up the process, Russia has written off debts to such states as Ethiopia, Mozambique, Yemen, etc. To be fair, it must be said that it would not have been possible to collect these funds anyway.
Payments on the external debt actually continued until recently.
It was possible to finally pay off only in 2017.
However, despite this, Russia has not managed to re-register all of its assets.
Ukraine, which took an irreconcilable position on this issue, did not want to settle the matter peacefully.
Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma managed to agree on the "zero option", but the Verkhovna Rada refused to approve the agreement.
The problem was not resolved by either Yushchenko or Yanukovych.
Kiev somehow calculated that it was owed $ 20 million. This, in his opinion, was the cost of the Ukrainian share in the foreign assets and property of the USSR.
At the same time, there was no talk at all about compensation for Russia, which paid off the debt of the USSR.
As a result, the Ukrainian authorities sent notifications to a number of countries stating that this or that property was disputable.
Someone ignored these letters, someone reacted by refusing to register Soviet property in Russia until the dispute was settled.
Kiev expressed outrage at the words of the Russian president about Ukraine's failure to fulfill its obligations.
However, the history of the issue shows that the excessive appetites of the Ukrainian authorities have become the reason that the problem has reached an absolute dead end.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.