Learning today that the British paid their last installment of England’s lend-lease dues this year, I began to wonder… has the Soviet Union ever repaid anything?
Obviously, with the descent into the Cold War, payments - I assume - would have ended. However, did payments ever begin? Was there a payment schedule even setup to begin with? How about China or France (or any other recipient nation), have they repaid their dues?
(Since it begs the question, anything outstanding from WWI?)
This would seem to have an objective, factual answer, so I am moving it to GQ where the historians who do not like to argue (much) hang out.
[ /Moderating ]
I’ll post to keep up with this puppy.
I had no idea lend lease was to actually be repaid.
Here is an article (from the perspective of the UK) discussing WWI and WWII debts: War Debts. It is a couple of years old, so it does not include the recent information about retiring the UK/US debt.
When I was in high school, 38 years ago, I was given the factoid during the study of WWII that Finland was the only country (at that time) which had paid off its obligation. (Of course, this did not reflect badly on the UK, since the agreement called for fifty payments that were to begin in 1950. it also ignored the other countries that were not even scheduled to retire their debts before 1970.)
Here is an Encarta discussion of Lend-Lease.
Finland fought for the Axis.
Which is why I specified obligation and not debt repayment.
However, it should be noted that prior to the invasion of Poland, Finland was the recipient of aid from the U.S. (including a number of Brewster F2A fighters). Whether those planes and the other materiel was the result of “Lend-Lease,” I am not sure, but the Finns did, indeed, incur a debt for military supplies that was not repaid before the general war broke out and the Soviet invasion pushed them onto the “wrong” side.
You, Sir, have done your part in fighting ignorance today. 
tomndebb, thank you for the move and link. Nice to know the Soviets honoured their debt.
However, I did post an error. The Brewsters sold to Finland preceded the German invasion of The Soviet Union, but were subsequent to the joint German/Soviet invasion of Poland. From some further research, I am pretty sure that the stuff sold to Finland was not part of the Lend-Lease program.
What did the Finns pay for those “fighters?” If it was more than 93 markka per plane, they got ripped off.