MOSCOW (Realist English). Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin believes that Russia should expand the list of goods exported for rubles, including fertilizers, grain, vegetable oil, crude oil, coal, metals and timber in addition to gas.
“European politicians need to stop talking, stop looking for excuses why their countries cannot pay in rubles. They should have thought earlier. It is them who have done everything to undermine confidence in the dollar and the euro, so that Russia refuses to settle settlements in these currencies,” he wrote in the telegram channel.
In his opinion, European countries have all the market capabilities to pay in rubles.
“There is no tragedy in this. The situation is much scarier when there is money, but no goods. Cooperation should be mutually beneficial. Gas is produced in difficult natural climatic conditions. This is a hardest job. If you want to get gas, look for rubles. It shouldn’t be any other way.
Moreover, it would be right to, where it is profitable for our country, expand the list of goods exported for rubles: fertilizers, grain, oil, oil, coal, metals, timber, etc.,” the speaker of the Russian parliament added.
Volodin advised the unfriendly countries to take the issue of ruble settlements more seriously: “Trying to isolate us with the policy of sanctions, , you have isolated yourself. It is necessary to be responsible for the decisions made.”
Proposals to the unfriendly countries for gas to pay in rubles must be executed and submitted to President Vladimir Putin within the deadline he specified earlier — March 31.
On March 28, German Energy Minister Robert Habeck said that the G7 countries considered unacceptable the requirement to switch to rubles in payments for natural gas and urged companies not to comply with it. On the same day, the Russian President’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow would not supply gas for free if the Europeans refused to pay for it in rubles.
