Russia could already be in default on some of its foreign currency debts, according to bondholders that claim they are still owed a small interest payment that Moscow didn’t send to them earlier this spring, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. A change in U.S. sanctions on Wednesday is expected to cut off Russia’s ability to stay current on its dollar-denominated sovereign debt, which it has managed to continue servicing since the invasion of Ukraine began.

Russia’s central bank delivered its third interest-rate reduction in just over a month and said borrowing costs can fall further still, halting a rally in the ruble as it unwinds the financial defenses in place since the invasion of Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported. The Bank of Russia lowered its benchmark to 11% from 14% on Thursday at an extraordinary meeting it announced only a day earlier. All 23 economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted a reduction, with most forecasting a cut of two percentage points.

Russian bailiffs have seized more than 7.7 billion roubles ($123.2 million) from Alphabet's Google that the U.S. tech giant had been ordered to pay as part of a fine on its turnover, Interfax news agency reported on Thursday. Google's Russian subsidiary last week said it planned to file for bankruptcy after authorities seized its bank account, making it impossible to pay staff and vendors, but free services including search and YouTube will continue operating. Read more.

The British government said it would use a windfall profits tax on oil and gas companies to help raise funds for direct payments to households, totaling about 15 billion pounds (about $19 billion), to ease the country’s cost-of-living crisis, the New York Times reported. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the Exchequer, announced the measures on Thursday as the government has come under increasingly intense pressure to help households with rapidly rising inflation and energy bills. Mr.

World Bank President David Malpass on Wednesday suggested that Russia's war in Ukraine and its impact on food and energy prices, as well as the availability of fertilizer, could trigger a global recession, Reuters reported. Malpass told an event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that Germany's economy, the world's fourth largest, has already slowed substantially due to higher energy prices, and said reduced production of fertilizer could worsen conditions elsewhere. "As we look at the global GDP ... it's hard right now to see how we avoid a recession," Malpass said.

Boris Becker has reportedly been transferred to a prison used to detain foreign criminals, indicating he will be deported from the UK at the end of his sentence, the Guardian reported. According to the Times, Becker’s lawyer told journalists in Berlin that he had been transferred to HMP Huntercombe in Oxfordshire. The former world No. 1 tennis player had been detained at Wandsworth prison, a category B prison, after he was jailed for two and a half years for concealing £2.5m of assets to avoid paying money he owed after his bankruptcy. He will serve half of the sentence.

Russia will service its dollar debt in rubles after the expiry of a sanctions loophole closed the option of payments in the US currency, potentially putting Moscow on track to default, Bloomberg News reported. The announcement came a day after the US confirmed the end of the waiver, creating another headache for Russia as it tries to get funds to investors. A payment in rubles would breach the terms on a 2026 dollar bond with coupons due this Friday, triggering a 30-day grace period before Russia could potentially slip into default.

European Union states have reported the freezing of about 23 billion euros ($24.5 billion) of assets of the Russian Central Bank, a top EU official said on Wednesday, revealing for the first time a figure that was expected to be much higher, Reuters reported. Russia has publicly said that Western sanctions led to the freezing of about $300 billion of its central bank's assets globally.

Some 62 million barrels of Russia's flagship Urals crude oil, a record amount, are sitting in vessels at sea, data from energy analytics firm Vortexa showed, as traders struggled to find buyers for the crude, Reuters reported. The United States and other countries have banned imports of Russian crude and oil products over its invasion of Ukraine, and others have avoided acquiring cargoes out of fear of future sanctions. The European Commission is considering an embargo of Russian oil.

Germany plans to order coal-fired power plants that were due to be shut down to be placed in reserve, as part of a plan to ensure the country can keep the lights on if supplies of natural gas from Russia are abruptly cut, the New York Times reported. A bill drawn up this week by the economy ministry, led by Robert Habeck, a member of the Greens, envisions maintaining power plants that burn coal and brown coal, or lignite, so they could by fired up on short notice. The proposed regulation, if adopted, would remain in place through March 31, 2024.