MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russia does not have enough budgetary funds to provide financial support to Greece, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said Tuesday.
“As of today, I rule this out [financial aid to Greece], because such funds are not stipulated in the federal budget law,” Storchak told journalists.
On February 10, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that Russia would consider providing financial aid to Greece if Athens asked Moscow to.
However, earlier in the month his Greek counterpart Yanis Varoufakis said that Greece would not request financial assistance from Russia.
Greece's recently elected government, headed by the leftist Syriza party, has vowed to revise the country's austerity measures. The restrictions were set to meet the bailout conditions of international creditors in exchange for multibillion euro loans issued over Greece's sovereign debt crisis.
Greece’s debt to the troika of creditors comprising the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund stands at about $270 billion.
Last week, Athens and Eurozone finance ministers reached an agreement to extend the deadline for Greece’s bailout for another four months.
