Putin asked the Central Bank and the government to implement “within a week” the new system, which must be “clear, transparent” and involves “the acquisition of rubles in the Russian foreign exchange market”.
The announcement had an immediate effect on the Russian currency, which strengthened against the euro and the dollar after having plunged since February 24, when Russian forces entered Ukraine.
Putin also hinted that other Russian exports will be affected.
Western countries have frozen some 300 billion dollars of Russian reserves abroad, a “theft”, the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, said on Wednesday.
“It is clear that delivering our goods to the EU, to the United States, and receiving dollars, euros and other currencies does not make sense for us anymore,” Putin said.
Putin said the government and central bank had a week to find a solution on how to move these operations to the Russian currency and gas giant Gazprom GAZP.MM would be ordered to make corresponding changes to gas contracts.
According to Gazprom, 58% of its natural gas sales to Europe and other countries were settled by January 27 in euros. US dollars accounted for about 39% of gross sales and sterling about 3%.
