“The first week of April will be a demonstration of confrontation”: who will win in the fight for the “gas ruble”?

Alexey Belogoryev, Deputy Principal Director on Energy Studies of the Institute for Energy and Finance, gave detailed comments to the Business Online publication (Republic of Tatarstan) about the prospects for the transition of Russian pipeline gas trade in Europe to rubles and Russia's ability to find alternative sales markets.

Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov warned countries unfriendly to the Russian Federation: we do not intend to engage in charity, no payment (in rubles) - no gas. However, if a gas blockade is applied to the EU, Russia will also have a hard time: there will simply be no one to sell the released 140 billion cubic meters of fuel - China and the CIS have no demand for such volumes, and most importantly, the country will begin to lose $ 10 billion every month.

Alexey Belogoryev is convinced that on April 1, not a single European buyer will start paying for Russian gas in rubles. “Switching to another currency is simply not possible unilaterally,” he says. “The settlement currency is an essential condition of the contract, and such issues are not resolved in a week.”