Russia's mountainous credit often influences its foreign policies to its detriment. It has noisily resisted every American move to fortify sanctions against Iraq and make them "smarter". Russia is owed $8 billion by that shredded country and would like to recoup at least a part of it by trading with the outcast or by gaining lucrative oil-related contracts. The sanctions regime is in its way - hence its apparent obstructionism. Its recent weapons deals with Syria are meant to compensate for its unpaid past debts to Russia - at the cost of destabilizing the Middle East and provoking American ire. Russia uses the profusion of loans gone bad on its tattered books to gain entry to international financial fora and institutions. Its accession to the Paris Club of official bilateral creditors is conditioned on its support for the HIPC (Highly Indebted Poor Countries) initiative. This is no trifling matter. Sub-Saharan debt to Russia amounted to c. $14 billion and North African debt to yet another $11 billion - in 1994. These awesome figures will have swelled by yet another 25% by 2001. The UNCTAD thinks that Russia intentionally under-reports these outstanding obligations and that Sub-Saharan Africa actually owed Russia $17 billion in 1994. Russia would have to forgo at least 90% of the debt owed it by the likes of Angola, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Mozambique, Somalia, Tanzania, and Zambia. Russian debts amount to between one third and two thirds of these countries' foreign debt. Moreover, its hopes to offset money owed it by countries within the framework of the Paris Club against its own debts to the Club were dashed last year. Hence its incentive to distort the data. Other African countries have manipulated their debt to Russia to their financial gain. Nigeria is known to have re-purchased, at heavily discounted prices, large chunks of its $2.2 billion debt to Russia in the secondary market through British and American intermediaries. It claims to have received a penalty waiver "from some of its creditors". Russia has settled the $1.7 billion owed it by Vietnam last year. The original debt - of $11 billion - was reduced by 85 percent and spread over 23 years. Details are scarce, but observers believe that Russia has extracted trade and extraction concessions as well as equity in Vietnamese enterprises. But Russia is less lenient with its former satellites. Two years ago, Ukraine had to supply Russia with sophisticated fighter planes and hundreds of cruise missiles incorporating proprietary technology. This was in partial payment for its overdue $1.4 billion natural gas bill. Admittedly, Ukraine is also rumored to have "diverted" gas from the Russian pipeline which runs through it.