Russian President Vladimir Putin request payment gas in currency ruble purchased by hostile countries from April.
The hostile countries that Putin is referring to are the ones that showered Russia with a series of sanctions for its military invasion of Ukraine.
It is known, these countries are the US and its allies, countries in the European Union.
The European Union itself is a customer of Russian liquefied natural gas.
“They will have to open a ruble account in a Russian bank. It is from this account that payments for gas deliveries will be made from tomorrow, April 1,” Putin said at a televised government meeting, as quoted by Reuters. AFP.
Putin announced that he had signed a decree outlining the process in a clear and transparent manner.
“If the payment is not made, we will consider this a violation of the obligations on the part of our buyers with all the ensuing consequences,” Putin said.
“No one is selling us anything for free and we won’t be doing charity work. That means existing contracts are terminated, if payments are not made,” he added.
According to the decree, all payments will be handled by Russia’s Gazprombank, a subsidiary of state energy giant Gazprom.
The buyer will transfer the payment to the Gazprombank account in a foreign currency, which will then be converted by the bank into rubles and transferred to the buyer’s ruble account.
Currently, gas prices in Europe are already expensive and the supply is also not abundant. It is certain that Putin’s new policy will exacerbate the energy crisis on the blue continent.
According to reports NPR Last week, new terms on Russian gas purchases appeared aimed at bolstering the sluggish ruble caused by US and western sanctions.
The proof, right after Putin announced the policy on Wednesday (23/3), the value of the ruble immediately rose against the US dollar and the euro.
Moreover, natural gas prices are indeed surging in Europe, where Russia is a major supplier, which is about 45 percent of Europe’s natural gas imports.
The head of the Energy and Finance Institute in Moscow, Marcel Salikhov, said Putin’s move was in retaliation for sanctions imposed by the US and western countries.
“It is difficult, given the current economic situation, the Russian authorities cannot abandon the sale of oil and gas to western countries. You can say ‘we (Russia) do not trust the euro or the US dollar, but economically, money is money,” Salikhov told NPR.
Moreover, US President Joe Biden began to ban energy imports from Russia. Countries in Europe have begun to announce similar plans, although it is still colored by debate, such as Germany which is too dependent on Russian energy.
However, several other countries agreed to limit Russia’s energy purchases, such as Britain and France.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, in a speech before the Duma (Russian legislator), warned of a potential collapse of the global energy market, and predicted energy prices to skyrocket due to stalled Russian exports.
(AFP/agn)
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