Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he will suspend the contracts of gas supply if “unfriendly” countries they do not pay for fuel in rubles and do not open an account in the Russian national currency at Gazprombank.
(Read here: Zelensky: Russian nuclear threat threatens global security)
“Today I signed a decree establishing the rules for trade in Russian natural gas with so-called unfriendly countries” and which will come into force on April 1, the Russian leader said shortly before a meeting with the aviation industry.
“We offer those countries a clear and transparent mechanism: to buy natural gas from Russia, they must open ruble accounts in Russian banks. Payments for gas supplied will be made from these accounts starting tomorrow“Putin said.
In the decree, the Russian president specifies that the authorized bank for this is Gazprombank, one of the few financial entities in Russia that has not been sanctioned by the European Union (EU) because it processes, together with Sberbank, a large part of the energy operations with the block.
The Russian president stated that Russia will not do “charitable works” regarding the supply of gas to Europe and other countries.
“If such payments are not made, we will consider this as a default by the buyers with all the resulting consequences,” he warned.
“Nobody sells us anything for free and we won’t do charity work either. That means that existing contracts (in case of non-payment of gas in rubles) will be suspended,” he stressed.
Putin noted that Russia supplied “European consumers with our resources, in this case gas, they received it, they paid us in euros, which they themselves then froze.”
“In this sense, there is a reason to believe that we supply part of the gas to Europe practically for free”he stressed, and said that it cannot continue like this.
However, the decree grants the Foreign Investment Control Commission the authority to grant “permits to foreign buyers to satisfy their obligations to Russian suppliers for natural gas supplies without having to comply with the established procedure” on the payment in rubles.
(In other news: Russian troops begin to withdraw from Chernobyl nuclear power plant)
The Russian Government adopted on the 8th a list of unfriendly countries and territories, which includes United States, Canada, all EU member countries, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Montenegro, Switzerland, Albania, Andorra, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, North Macedonia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Micronesia, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan.
The price of TTF natural gas for delivery in May on the Dutch market rose to 127.37 euros per MWh during Putin’s speech.
EFE
More news
#Putin #suspend #gas #contracts #countries #dont #pay #rubles