Seems I remember when the old Soviet Union when under, they were desperate for

[shraby]

funds to run their country. Also if I recall correctly, we bailed them out because they were not the USSR anymore.
Do they still owe us funds or did they pay that back.
Or if they still owe us, are they counting on the donald to forgive any debt?

Can anyone enlighten me on this?

[tenorly]

1. My understanding is that we didn't.

The only bailout the U.S. endorsed during the 1990s was in the aftermath of a financial crisis in 1998 - and only because so many large western banks (particularly Bank of America) were so heavily exposed.

The 1998 bailout - a $17 billion loan package administered by the IMF - did succeed in stabilizing the Russian economy (and by extension, those of a number of its neighbors). Russian GDP, however, had already fallen by 40% from 1989 to 1996 - a collapse even more severe than the Hoover depression here in the U.S, when GDP fell by 30% (anything more than 6% is considered a collapse).

The official U.S. policy laid out by Poppy Bush - and largely maintained under Clinton - was basically to let Russia and the other former Soviet republics collapse. On the advice of free-marketeer Jeffrey Sachs, fire-sale privatizations were furthermore promoted, although this policy backfired when Yeltsin began handing them out to his political cronies (a policy continued by Putin).

[shraby]

2. I found the aid and posted it in another thread.

[elleng]

3. I don't know everything, but thought this might help:

http://jeffsachs.org/2012/03/what-i-did-in-russia/