"Unfriendly countries" can continue to pay for natural gas in foreign currency through a Russian bank that will convert the money into rubles, according to a Kremlin decree published by state media Thursday, a day after the leaders of Italy and Germany said they received assurances from President Vladimir Putin.
Putin talked tougher, saying Russia will start accepting ruble payments starting Friday for Western countries that imposed sanctions over its conflict with Ukraine. He said contracts will be stopped if buyers don’t sign up to the new conditions, including opening ruble accounts in Russian banks.
"If these payments are not made, we will consider it a failure of the buyer to fulfil its obligations, with all the ensuing consequences," Putin said.
The decree Putin signed and published by state news agency RIA Novosti says a designated bank will open two accounts for each buyer, one in foreign currency and one in rubles. The buyers will pay in foreign currency and authorize the bank to sell that currency for rubles, which are placed in the second account, where the gas is formally purchased.
Speaking shortly after Putin’s announcement, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a noncommittal initial response to Russia’s new conditions. He said the gas contracts stipulate payment mostly in euros and sometimes in dollars. He said he made clear to Putin in a phone call Wednesday "that it will stay that way.”
"What his ideas are for how this can happen is what we will now look at closely,” Scholz told a reporters in Berlin. "But in any case, what goes for companies is that they want to and will be able to pay in euros.”
Italian Premier Mario Draghi said earlier Thursday that he had also received assurances from Putin that Europe would not have to pay in rubles and diffused fears that Moscow would cut off supplies of gas used for heating and electricity.
