Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Thursday stating buyers must pay in roubles through Russian bank accounts from Friday. The Kremlin said this would not affect shipments which were already paid for, with payments for deliveries after 1 April due in mid-April at the earliest.

The country is seeking to shore up the rouble as Western sanctions bite.

"Does this mean that if there is no confirmation in roubles, then gas supplies will be cut off from 1 April? No, it doesn't, and it doesn't follow from the decree," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

The EU said it was talking to energy companies about how to pay for gas. Ditte Juul Jorgensen, the director general of the European Commission energy directorate, tweeted that the EU was "working closely with member states and operators... to establish a common approach on currency payments for gas contracts with Russia". Since Russia invaded Ukraine Western nations have placed sanctions on Russian companies and individuals.

Unlike the US and Canada, the EU has not placed bans on oil or gas, as its member nations are heavily reliant on it. Russia supplies the European Union (EU) with about 40% of its gas and a third of its oil imports which are mainly paid for in euros and dollars.

The EU has no easy substitutes if supplies are disrupted, but at the same time, Russia is making €400m (£340m) per day from gas sales to the bloc and it has very few options for rerouting this supply to other markets.

Member states in the EU have been on alert for any disruption to Russian gas imports as tension continues between Russia and the West over the Ukraine invasion. On Wednesday, Germany and Austria took the first steps towards gas rationing. Germany urged consumers and companies to reduce consumption in anticipation of possible shortages, while Austria said it was tightening its monitoring of the gas market.

A crunch point appeared to be in the offing when Moscow issued a decree on Thursday requiring foreign buyers of Russian gas to open rouble accounts from Friday or else risk being cut-off.

Moscow did, however, offer a mechanism for buyers to obtain roubles via the state-run Gazprombank.The bank has escaped sanctions from the EU to allow energy trading to continue.

The UK has imposed sanctions on Gazprombank, but imports less than 5% of its gas from Russia. UK and Dutch wholesale gas prices fell on Friday after the announcement that Russian gas supplies would not be halted immediately. Westbound flows of Russian gas via major routes were steady on Friday

Likeandshare:
Like if you think countries will pay in ruble, share if you think they won't.

Likeandshare:
Like if you think countries will pay in ruble, share if you think they won't.

Uprightness100:
A Friend in the United States sent me this today and I totally agree with it.

Regardless of what you think about Putin’s morals or ethics, he is a genius strategist whose intellect is vastly superior to Joe Biden’s. Putin latest move threatens the very future of the dollar (fiat) currency and may spell the beginning of the end for the dollar.

Beginning this Friday, Russia will only accept roubles, gold or bitcoin as payment for energy exports to “unfriendly” countries. No dollars or euros will be accepted. And why should Putin accept dollars or euros anyway, given that the western financial system has told Putin he can no longer use dollars or euros to purchase anything.

As a result, Putin is demanding roubles, gold or bitcoin. And that means the Russian rouble is now backed by commodities exports, making it a currency backed by something real. If you buy roubles, in other words, you can trade those roubles for natural gas or oil.

Putin blasted the “theft” of Moscow’s resources and mocked the notion that first-world currency reserve holders are “reliable.”

Russia has just made some moves that are going to change the global financial system forever.

When the conflict in Ukraine originally erupted, the U.S. immediately attempted to crash the value of Russia’s currency. Those attempts were successful for a few days, but now the value of the rouble relative to the U.S. dollar is almost all the way back to where it was before the start of the war.

This has absolutely stunned many of the experts, because they thought that U.S. sanctions would absolutely cripple Russia. So what happened? Well, it turns out that the Russians have made some very savvy moves that have turned the tables on the Biden administration.

For one thing, Russia has started to demand payment in roubles when it sells natural gas to non-friendly nations. A lot of countries in western Europe are quite upset about this, but they really have no choice, because they are exceedingly dependent on Russian gas. So from this point forward, western powers are actually going to be forced to help prop up the value of the rouble…

This is a new directive from President Vladimir Putin as he attempts to leverage his country’s in-demand resources to counter a barrage of Western sanctions.

“I have decided to implement … a series of measures to switch payments — we’ll start with that — for our natural gas supplies to so-called unfriendly countries into Russian roubles,” Putin said in a televised government meeting, adding that trust in the dollar and euro had been “compromised” by the West’s seizure of Russian assets.

Secondly, the Russians have decided that U.S. dollars will no longer be accepted as payment for anything that they sell to other nations. Pavel Zavalny, the head of the Russian parliament, says that U.S. currency “has lost all interest for us”…

Much more interesting was Zavalny’s main point, even though it has been mostly overlooked. If other countries want to buy oil, gas, other resources or anything else from Russia, he said, “let them pay either in hard currency, and this is gold for us, or pay as it is convenient for us, this is the national currency.”

In other words, Russia is happy to accept your national currency — yuan, lira, ringgits or whatever — or roubles, or “hard currency,” and for them that no longer means U.S. dollars, it means gold.

“The dollar ceases to be a means of payment for us, it has lost all interest for us,” Zavalny added, calling the greenback “no better than “candy wrappers.”

This is huge, but it isn’t being discussed much by the corporate media in the United States, or Australia!.

The Russians aren’t just saying that they do not recognize U.S. dollars as the reserve currency of the world any longer. That would be bad enough.

At this point, they are actually saying that they will no longer accept U.S. dollars as a form of payment at all.

This is the largest seismic adjustment to the world financial system since the end of World War 2.

Dialpad:
How many times have you been denied USA visa

Akasammyoka:
Putin is starting to quiver. Many will soon follow Lithuania to leave this Russian gas and fuel, this am sure

Akasammyoka:
Putin is starting to quiver. Many will soon follow Lithuania to leave this Russian gas and fuel, this am sure

Akasammyoka:
Putin is starting to quiver. Many will soon follow Lithuania to leave this Russian gas and fuel, this am sure

SIRTee15:
Nobody is paying in ruble. EU is still paying in euros and will continue to do so.
Gazprom wasn't sanctioned by EU so the Russian edict is useless.
EU will pay gazprom in euros, it's left for the Russian bank to change it to rubles or whatever and pay Putin.
It's a meaningless law, just some useless political point for Putin just like his pyrrhic battles in Ukraine.

Besides Putin can't just shut off the gas pipeline like it's tap water. He can’t keep oil and gas from coming out of the ground without capping wells, and storage capacity will get filled very fast if shipments stop cold, and then what what next?

And unlike what some ignorant pro putin are saying, he can't immediately switch to China or any other country such huge volumes. Russia has no pipeline to China or India. Putin will be stupid to stop 60 percent of his budget revenues.
How then will he fight his meaningless war?.
He's bluffing!

Uprightness100:


It's the other way round bro. Just about a yr ago or thereabout I rejected a fully sponsored move to the US

I don't hate the US. Lots of my Personal Family members are residents and citizens there.
What I hate is Evil and Abominations approved and advanced by the Government because I know it will Destroy her. It's in the Bible and we are seeing it live.

Uprightness100:


It's the other way round bro. Just about a yr ago or thereabout I rejected a fully sponsored move to the US

I don't hate the US. Lots of my Personal Family members are residents and citizens there.
What I hate is Evil and Abominations approved and advanced by the Government because I know it will Destroy her. It's in the Bible and we are seeing it live.

Uprightness100:


[s]It's the other way round bro. Just about a yr ago or thereabout I rejected a fully sponsored move to the US

I don't hate the US. Lots of my Personal Family members are residents and citizens there.
What I hate is Evil and Abominations approved and advanced by the Government because I know it will Destroy her. It's in the Bible and we are seeing it live. [/s]

chronique:
After this is over, a lot of changes in international trade would be made. Putin has opened the eyes of the world. It would no longer be business as usual for the west.

PaNnamdi:

Tell your buhari to instigate Africa to stop using dollars na

Or is buhari now a strong president