After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia carried out currency exchange reforms, changing the denominations of all former Soviet rubles to one thousandth of their original value, that is, removing the last three zeros, and converting them into new rubles.

Without debt, you are light-hearted, but with debt, you feel uneasy. The debt problem has always been an unavoidable topic in Russian history. Since Peter the Great, Russia has been militarizing and expanding on the one hand, and on the other hand, it has carried out large-scale construction projects and accelerated its modernization. To this end, Russia had to borrow large sums of money from capital-rich Western developed countries.

The Soviet Union’s debt problem:

1. As of before the February Revolution, Russia’s foreign debt accounted for a staggering 214.6% of GDP, making it the world’s largest debtor country. After the outbreak of the October Revolution, the newly established Soviet regime faced the brutal blockade by Western countries. Due to various considerations, it announced to the outside world that it refused to repay all debts of the previous government. The Soviet Union's debt was instantly reduced to zero, and it embarked on the road to national reconstruction with ease. But it was accompanied by lengthy economic sanctions from Western creditor countries.

2. Until the outbreak of World War II, out of the common needs of anti-fascism, the Soviet Union, Britain and the United States and other countries settled their past grievances and regained a certain degree of credibility and image in the international debt market. Loans from European and American capitalists once again entered the Russian treasury. However, it should be pointed out that for most of the time, the Soviet Union’s foreign debt burden remained within control, and the total foreign debt never exceeded US$5 billion. The real debt turning point occurred when oil prices fell in the mid-1980s.

3. (Petroleum) Since 1985, Saudi Arabia no longer protected oil prices and began to increase oil production on a large scale, causing oil, which was once at a high level, to fall rapidly. This was a heavy blow to the Soviet Union, which relied heavily on oil exports for revenue. Soviet oil revenue dropped significantly from US$15.6 billion in 1983 to US$7 billion in 1986, a decrease of US$9 billion in three years.

4. (Former US President Ronald Reagan and the King of Saudi Arabia) Income has decreased, but rigid expenditures have remained high. From the quagmire in Afghanistan in 1979 to the massive aid at all costs to countries such as Vietnam, Cuba, and North Korea, numerous fiscal black holes that could only be entered but could not be exited overwhelmed the Soviet economy. The inability to open up sources and control flows naturally forced the Soviet Union to embark on the path of large-scale debt borrowing. Since 1986, the Soviet Union's foreign debt has exceeded US$30 billion, and by 1989 it exceeded the US$50 billion mark. Before the disintegration, it soared to US$96 billion, equivalent to a quarter of China's GDP that year.

5. (The Soviet red flag fell from the Kremlin) When the Soviet Union collapsed, these debts could not disappear out of thin air, and they weighed heavily on the 15 new countries. Regarding the US$96 billion in foreign debt, 15 countries have engaged in fierce competition over how to repay the debt.