March 23 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday Russia would start selling gas to “unfriendly” countries in roubles, after a freeze on Russia’s assets by foreign nations had destroyed Moscow’s trust.
European countries’ dependence on Russian gas and other exports has been thrown into the spotlight since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it called a special operation to degrade its southern neighbour’s military capabilities and root out people it called dangerous nationalists.
“Russia will continue, of course, to supply natural gas in accordance with volumes and prices…fixed in previously concluded contracts,” Putin said at a televised meeting with top government ministers.
“The changes will only affect the currency of payment, which will be changed to Russian roubles,” he said.
Putin said the government and central bank had one week to come up with a solution on how to move these operations to the Russian currency and that gas giant Gazprom GAZP.MM would be ordered to make the corresponding changes to gas contracts.
As of Jan. 27, Gazprom’s sales of natural gas to Europe and other countries were primarily settled in euros, at approximately 58%.
“An understandable and transparent procedure of making payments should created for (all foreign buyers), including acquiring Russian roubles on our domestic currency market,” Putin said.
Ukrainian forces have mounted stiff resistance to Russia’s actions and the West has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in an effort to force it to withdraw its forces.
The Kremlin on Wednesday accused the United States of putting pressure on other countries to have Russia removed from the Group of Twenty (G20) forum of major economies, but said some members were resisting.
The United States and its Western allies are assessing whether Russia should remain within the G20, sources told Reuters on Tuesday. A G7 source, however, said it was unlikely that Indonesia, currently heading the G20, or members like India, Brazil, South Africa and China would agree to remove Russia from the group.
“It is well-known that the United States exerts overt and hardly diplomatic pressure on all countries in terms of all-round opposition to our country,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.
“It’s clear that the Americans will continue to apply pressure on different (G20) countries but as we see, a number of states prefer to adhere to their independent, sovereign points of view.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Russia’s ambassador to Indonesia, which will host the G20 summit in Bali this year, said Putin planned to attend.
The G20, along with the smaller Group of Seven – comprising just the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Britain – is a key international platform for coordinating action on issues such as climate change and cross-border debt.
The G7 was expanded to a new “G8” format that included Russia in the late 1990s. Moscow was indefinitely suspended from that club after its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it called a special operation to degrade its southern neighbour’s military capabilities and root out people it called dangerous nationalists.
Ukrainian forces have mounted stiff resistance and the West has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in an effort to force it to withdraw its forces.
