They did not.
They had supplied stuff to Iraq and others and recieved funds from their bank collateralized with some sort of paper..... foreign government depositorey receipts or some such. They collected no money. They had a fancy paper dreamed up by their banks. They had millions and millions of dollars worth.
At first, they offered these notes as payment. We demurred. they then increased trhe amount against somene's dream of a value in US$. We demurred. They had the Iraqui's call us and tell us they would accept the notes against Iraqui goods. We give the Russians fax machines, they give us Iraqui paper and the Iraqi's give us Iraqi made goods. We demurred. No $$$$, no stuff.
The incredible fact is the Russians are stupid. They had their factories crank out the stuff shipped to Iraq and instead of getting paid, they took paper. They ran the paper thru their banking system and made it appear that there had been a completed transaction. This practice also was used in trade with other nations as well. The folks we were dealing with had all kinds of these bank receipts, but Most were from Iraq.
They could not believe that they had done all that work for literally nothing. The system that one day just up and failed was based on colossal stupidity.
The Russians will never ever collect from Iraq. The recent trade resulted in a greater screwing than the old days.