By USA Today

Russia said Friday it would consider giving financial aid to Greece as the cash-strapped nation runs out of time to resolve its long-running debt crisis and avert an exit from the eurozone.

“We will support any solution on regulating the Greek debt crisis that is suggested by Greece and our European partners,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said, according to the state-run TASS news agency. “The most important things for us are investment projects and trade with Greece. If financial support is required, we will consider this question.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s office also said Friday that Russia would consider giving loans to Greece, adding such aid should be considered par for the course for countries that are partners. Putin’s office stressed Greece has not yet formally asked for any financial assistance from Moscow.

The development came as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met Friday with Putin in St. Petersburg, where the Russian leader was hosting an annual investment forum. However, Russian financial aid for Greece was not discussed between the two, Putin’s spokesman said later Friday.

Speaking earlier at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Tsipras said that Russia’s role in the world was expanding and that Europe was misguided to think of itself as being at the center of the world.

“The world is different from what it used to be in the past,” Tsipras said. “We, in Europe, have for long had an illusion that we are the hub of the universe in the literal sense; we considered ourselves to be the world center and continued to see and count exclusively on our nearest immediate entourage.”

As the two leaders met, Greece and Russia announced a deal to build a gas pipeline that would enable Russian gas to reach Europe via Turkey. The project, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, is scheduled to be completed in 2019.

The comments from Tsipras, and the last-minute offer of aid from Russia — itself at loggerheads with Europe over its actions in Ukraine — arrived as Athens and its international creditors (the International Monetary Fund and eurozone) have tried, and failed, for months to hammer out a deal over resolving the country’s large loan repayments.

Over the last five years, Greece has borrowed about $280 billion in emergency loans from the IMF and eurozone governments, but that bailout expires June 30, when Greece is also due to make a $1.7 billion repayment to the IMF.

Tsipras has consistently insisted his country — all but economically ruined from previous debt commitments in place since the financial crisis — can’t and won’t pay without a new, more equitable deal.

Still, Yannis Koutsomitis, a eurozone analyst and commentator on the Greek debt crisis, said it was unlikely Russia would be willing to upset the IMF and provide Greece with loans without Greece immediately turning around paying its creditors.

“On the other hand, one can never be certain about Putin,” he said.

On Monday, European leaders will hold an emergency summit in Brussels aimed at resolving an impasse that many experts believe could see Greece default on its loans and set in motion a messy exit from the single currency bloc.

Concerned that the breakdown in talks could lead to full-blown bank runs in Greece, the European Central Bank agreed Friday to extend, by an unspecified amount, an emergency liquidity facility for Greece’s troubled banks.

Bank withdrawals have accelerated this week in Greece over concerns the negotiations may ultimately fail.

“The game of chicken needs to end, and so does the blame game. Because this is not a game and there is no time for any games,” European Council President Donald Tusk, who proposed Monday’s emergency summit, said in emailed comments.