INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Poland's state energy company on Thursday said it would not pay for Russian gas in rubles, becoming the latest to reject Kremlin demands
amid unprecedented sanctions on Moscow over its war in Ukraine."We don't see how we could," PAP news agency quoted Pawel Majewski, head of
state oil and gas company PGNiG, as saying."The contract..
sets the means of payment
It does not allow one party to modify this according to its will."President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said Russia would only accept
payments in rubles for gas deliveries to "unfriendly countries" after Moscow was hit by an avalanche of sanctions over its war.The economy
minister of Germany, a country that imported 55 percent of its natural gas from Russia before the war, said the move was a breach of
contract and that Berlin would discuss with European partners how to react.The boss of Austria's OMV energy company said that the contract
thereafter wean itself off Russian gas, replacing it with liquified gas shipments at ports and gas from Norway via a Baltic Sea
from the central bank's foreign reserves to McDonalds.Immediately after Putin's announcement, the ruble -- which has plummeted since the
start of the Ukraine war -- strengthened against the dollar and euro, while gas prices rose.
