INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday warned "unfriendly" countries, including all EU members, that they would be cut off from Russian gas
unless they opened an account in rubles to pay for deliveries.Western countries have piled crippling sanctions on Moscow since it moved
Russian oil and gas, the European Union -- which received around 40 percent of its gas supplies from Russia in 2021 -- has retained
deliveries from Moscow."They must open ruble accounts in Russian banks
It is from these accounts that payments will be made for gas delivered starting tomorrow, April 1," Putin said during a televised government
consider this a breach of obligations on the part of our buyers with all the ensuing consequences," Putin said."Nobody sells us anything for
free and we are not going to do charity work
Russia's Gazprombank, a subsidiary of state energy giant Gazprom.Buyers will transfer payments into a Gazprombank account in foreign
currency, which the bank will then convert into rubles and transfer into the buyer's ruble account.Earlier, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov
said that the new payment method would not affect the price of deliveries stipulated in the contracts."Those who receive Russian gas..
they just acquire rubles for the amount in currency which is stipulated in the gas contract," Peskov told reporters.German Chancellor Olaf
Scholz said on Thursday Western countries would continue paying for Russian gas in euros or dollars."We looked at the contracts for the gas
deliveries," Scholz told reporters in Berlin."They say that payments are made in euros, sometimes in dollars..
and I made clear in my conversation with the Russian president that that will remain the case," referring to a telephone call with Putin on
no longer any Russian gas."Western capital imposed harsh economic sanctions since the start of Moscow's military operation in Ukraine on Feb
24, accelerating already high inflation and hitting the ruble.The EU refrained from an energy embargo against Russia
However, the bloc has announced it plans to slash imports of Russian gas by two thirds this year.While payments for gas in rubles will allow
their revenue into rubles.According to Russia's Central Bank, its reserves -- including the frozen $300 billion -- decreased between Feb
18 and March 25 from $643.2 to $604.4 billion.After the introduction of sanctions, Russia expanded the list of what it calls "unfriendly"
countries that now includes the United States, Australia, Canada, Britain, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, all EU member states and several
