(Bloomberg) -- Some holders of a $3 billion Russia bond received an overdue interest payment, signaling that the heavily sanctioned nation will once again sidestep a default.

The $66 million interest payment started showing up in accounts on Thursday, according to two international bondholders, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The payment was in dollars, one of the people said. A third bondholder reached Thursday said they had yet to see the payment.

It’s the third Eurobond coupon payment that Russia is set to complete in the past week, a relief to investors who feared that it would neither be able -- nor willing -- to navigate the plethora of sanctions to meet its debt obligations.

The payment, which had been due on March 21 with a 30-day grace period, has been slowly moving through the financial system for the past three days. Russia’s National Settlement Depository said it processed the payment Tuesday. Earlier in that day, the Finance Ministry said it had transferred the cash to the NSD, thus meeting its obligations “in full.”

While every payment helps ease fears of an imminent default, investors are still signaling they remained concerned the country could default, given the sudden deterioration in its credit profile since it invaded Ukraine last month.

The 2029 bond with the coupon due on Monday was quoted at around 17 cents on the dollar last week. They were trading above par a little over a month ago, according to prices compiled by Bloomberg.

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