Did Russia prevent Greece from leaving the Eurozone?

Zero Hedge — Earlier this week a surprising update has hit the wires. According to two journalists of Le Monde who were trying to write a book about French President Francois Hollande.

Hollande confirmed Russian president Putin told him the Greek prime minister officially requested Moscow’s help with the reintroduction of the Greek Drachma.

Two of the named parties (the Greeks and the Russians) and  Varoufakis who was the Greek finance minister at the time, immediately denied this report, but the camp of Francois Hollande remained quiet about the re-surfaced ‘allegations’.

That being said, leaving the Eurozone would definitely been the best solution for debt-laden Greece and even the International Monetary Fund was supporting this view.

The Greek debt position was (and still is) definitely unsustainable and if the creditors wouldn’t allow a haircut to be applied on the value of its loans to the Southern country, no long-term solution could be reached.

But let’s get back to the key point here. Greece approached Russia for assistance with a Grexit-scenario but Russia turned the Greeks down where after Tsipras had no choice but to accept the bailout package. This is another piece of evidence ‘backing up’ Putin is not and should not considered to be Europe’s public enemy number 2. We recall an interview with Putin in a September edition of Bloomberg Business Week, where president Putin said:

“We hold 40 percent of our reserves in euros, and it’s not in our interest for the euro zone to collapse”.