About a month ago, smart folks zeroed in on a single clause in Russia's two-year $3 billion loan to Ukraine. The December 2013 loan was documented as an ordinary-looking eurobond, apart from a promise by Ukraine to keep its debt under 60% of its GDP. No other Ukrainian bond had the debt/GDP clause, which naturally looked awkward when the sole bondholder started hacking at the denominator of the debt/GDP fraction (Crimea, about 3% of GDP; east and south, about 45%).

Since then, I have communed a bit with Ukrainian bond prospectuses, and stumbled on another clause only found in the Russian bond. All of Ukraine's state and state-guaranteed foreign bonds cross-default to one another: if Ukraine skips a bond payment due in 2014, holders of the bond due in 2021 can accelerate. However, the Russian bond also cross-defaults to "any indebtedness ... owed to the Noteholder or to any entity controlled or majority-owned by the Noteholder". Compare the cross-default provision in this Ukrainian bond to this one (search "Events of Default", "Indebtedness of Ukraine" and "Relevant Indebtedness").

One wonders whether they were thinking of Gazprom, majority-owned by the Russian government, and perennially claiming billions in arrears from Ukraine's Naftogaz. If Ukraine is late with its gas bills, Russia can accelerate its $3 billion. Since, according to Russia, Ukraine was already in gas arrears at the time the $3 billion bond was issued, that bond might have been callable at will all along.