Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's have lowered their long-term foreign currency issuer credit ratings for Kyiv City to 'D' (Default) after the city authorities missed their payment deadline on the city's eurobonds.

"Kyiv’s eurobonds restructuring constitutes what we consider to be a distressed debt restructuring. Under our criteria, we view an exchange offer as tantamount to a default," Standard & Poor's said.

Fitch treats the introduction of the interim payment moratorium on the city's eurobonds as a default in line with its distressed debt exchange (DDE) criteria.

As reported, the last offer regarding a proposed swap of Kyiv notes worth $550 million for sovereign bonds was supported by the ad hoc committee of creditors.

On November 5, 2015, the Kyiv City Council adopted a resolution approving the heads of terms for an exchange of its outstanding $550 million loan participation notes due 2015 and 2016 (the notes) for new sovereign bonds (after a principal haircut of 25%) for $412.5 million in aggregate principal amount of Ukrainian sovereign bonds due 2019 and 2020 (the new bonds).