Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Russia is capable of paying off its debt and won’t default, President Dmitry Medvedev said.

“The volume of domestic debt is such that there could be no default,” Medvedev said today in an interview with three state- controlled television channels, according to a transcript posted on the Kremlin Web site. “We are not planning any denomination either; it is an absolutely senseless thing.”

Russia may slip into its first recession since the 1998 financial crisis in the first half of 2009, Kremlin economic adviser Arkady Dvorkovich said in a Bloomberg Television interview on Dec. 19. Russia defaulted on $40 billion of debt in August 1998 and devalued the ruble.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lyubov Pronina in Moscow at lpronina@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: December 24, 2008 11:34 EST