OREANDA-NEWS. Russia never received all of the USSR’s foreign assets that it owed, despite paying off the debts of all former Soviet republics. This was announced on Wednesday by Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting with a working group to prepare amendments to the Constitution.

He called obvious the fact that Russia is the successor of the USSR. “And all countries agreed that we were the successors when it was necessary to repay loans for all the republics of the former Soviet Union. In my opinion, we paid 16 billion for Ukraine alone”, Putin said, noting that “the whole world was very happy, "when the Russian Federation assumed these obligations on debts in exchange for foreign assets of the former USSR.

"We repaid the loans for everyone, but some of the newly formed states in the Soviet Union did not transfer assets abroad to us", the Russian president said. “The succession and coherence of each historical stage is a very important thing”, the president concluded, noting that it would be necessary to look again at the proposals for the relevant amendments.