Moscow, April 3: Russia will demand that other exported commodities are paid for in its national currency after President Vladimir Putin said the West must buy its natural gas with rubles, his spokesman said on Sunday.
“It is still a prototype system [of payments] but I’m convinced that it will cover other groups of goods and it will take up a larger role in our foreign trade,” Dmitry Peskov told a Rossiya 1 television show.
He argued that Western gas buyers would be required to exchange rubles for euros or US dollars, effectively continuing to pay in their preferred currencies as stipulated by gas contracts with the state Russian energy company. “The final payment will go to Gazprom in rubles after these euros are converted to rubles”, Peskov explained.
