6 some access to small trade credits starting in 1924, scattered bilateral loans in the 1940s, and foreign commercial loans in the 1970s and 1980s.<sup>8</sup> After the oil price collapse of 1972, USSR borrowing expanded rapidly. By the early 1990s, its total external debts were estimated to be between US$66 billion and US$90 billion.<sup>9</sup> Arguably, one could consider all external debt in a centrally-planned economic system to be at least constructively public.<sup>10</sup> Hence, this amount is much larger than Russia’s current Eurobond stock, which sits at about US$40 billion. In real terms, it is potentially larger than Russia’s current total external debt stock (which includes private sector borrowing from foreigners): In 1992, the public debt stock sat between 2021-constant US$117 billion and 2021-constant US$158 billion versus US$150 billion at the end of 2021.<sup>11</sup> This is the context for the next two defaults.

The Russian debt crises of the 1990s are still well remembered, though different authors take different views as to the dating of the default periods. Under a _substantive_ definition of default, the appropriate dating for the default spells would be 1991-1995 and 1998-2000.<sup>12</sup>

> 8 _Id_ . at 534-35; Vladimir Tikhomirov, _Russian Debt Problems in the 1990s_ , Post-Soviet Affairs, 17:3, 262284, at 262 (2001).

> 9 James M. Boughton, _Tearing Down Walls: The International Monetary Fund 1990-1999_ , International Monetary Fund (2012) at 288 for the lower bound estimate as of end 1991. Sinyagina-Woodruff (2003) p. 536 (citing A. Shokhin “Vneshii Dolg Rosii” ZAO Rasters (1997); B. Kheifets “Kreditania istoriia Rossii ot Ekateriny II do Putina” Editorial URSS (2001); V. Tikhomirov “Russian Debt Problems in the 1990s” Post-Soviet Affairs, 17-3 (2001)) for the other estimates for 1992.

10 However, under the U.S. Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 the inquiry as to whether a stateowned enterprise is an instrumentality of the government does not consider the political system. _See e.g. Edlow International Co. v. Nuklearna Elektrarna Krsko_ , 441 F.Supp. 827, 831-832 (D.D.C. 1977). In that contemporaneous case the plaintiff sued a Yugoslav “workers’ organization” for breach of contract. The court found _Nuklearna_ to be legally separate from the Yugoslavian state and thus found itself lacking jurisdiction despite existing within a de jure socialist regime. _See_ Joseph W. Dellapenna, _Suing Foreign Governments and Their Corporations: Sovereign Immunity (part 1)_ , 85 Com. L.J. 167, at 171 (1980). In _Nuklearna_ , however, the court’s decision left room to draw a distinction between a socialist government like that of former Yugoslavia and a command economy like that of the former USSR, since the government of Yugoslavia provided no subsidies and was not involved in the management of the company. _See id_ .

11 End of 2021 total external debt stock statistics from the Central Bank of Russia using a residency definition for “external.” Real terms adjustment performed by the author using the US GDP deflator retrieved from <u>FRED.</u>

> 12 Julianne Ams et al., _Sovereign Debt: A Guide for Economists and Practitioners, Chapter 7: Sovereign Default_ , at 3 (explaining the different definitions of sovereign default).