Russian President Vladimir Putin released the foreign buyers from the obligation to make payments for Russian natural gas to an account in “Gazprombank”, DP reported, quoted by BTA.
A new presidential decree published last night only mentions “authorized bank”.
The change aims to help Russia continue to sell gas to EU countries after two weeks ago the US included “Gazprombank” in its list of sanctions, the DPA states.
In April 2022, shortly after he ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the West imposed its first sanctions against Russia, Putin decreed that Western customers would only receive gas if they paid into a ruble account at Gazprombank.
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The measure was intended to support the Russian currency while demonstrating the Kremlin's strength in the conflict with the West.
Since then, the share of Russian pipeline gas in the EU's collective imports has been steadily decreasing. However, countries such as Slovakia and Hungary still buy large quantities from Russia.
US sanctions against “Gazprombank“ have hampered these supplies, which has also accelerated the fall in the ruble's exchange rate in recent weeks. Now Russia hopes to bypass the sanctions by using other banks, DPA commented.