Russia plans to use US$10 billion from its international reserves to buy bonds from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Wednesday.

The investment is aimed at providing support to countries that are hit hard by the ongoing global financial crisis, the Interfax news agency cited Kudrin as saying when briefing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting.

Medvedev supported the decision, recalling the G20 London Summit, in which world leaders called for collective efforts to combat the crisis.

Leaders at the summit also pledged to boost support for the IMF, planning to inject a US$500 billion emergency lending into the fund partly through issuance of bonds.

The Russian head of state has asked his government to study the feasibility of buying the IMF bonds after the summit. On April 5, Kudrin said the government was mulling over the purchase and following the market trend.

(Xinhua News Agency May 28, 2009)