On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed his government and Gazprom, the large state-owned company that oversees natural gas contracts and deliveries, not to accept payments in dollars or euros in the future.

The head of the Kremlin assured international clients of Russian state-owned companies in a state video conference broadcast on state television that deliveries would remain fully guaranteed. However, Putin continued, paying Russian goods in foreign currency lost its meaning.

Russia’s blacklisted “unfriendly countries,” including all European Union countries, as well as the United States, Canada and Britain, have been affected. Putin allowed a one-week transition period, after which he accepted only the ruble.

According to the Russian newspaper Kommersant, the ruble began to rise on the Moscow Stock Exchange in response.

The Russian president retreated in the first week of March in response to Western sanctions directionsTo make a list of countries hostile to Russia.

The pro-authority newspaper Pravda had previously classified Hungary as a friendly country, but this is no longer the case in the official record, and EU member states, no matter how strategically calm, were uniformly blacklisted. (DW)