According to an announcement by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Germany and other "unfriendly countries" will in future pay for gas deliveries in rubles.

Putin said on Wednesday he had instructed his government to stop accepting payments in dollars or euros.

A payment for Russian goods in foreign currency has "lost its meaning".

Deliveries would continue to be made in full, the Kremlin chief assured during a video conference broadcast on state television.

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The European gas price reacted to the announcement with a significant increase of around 20 percent to 119 euros per megawatt hour.

In the meantime, the price even reached more than 132 euros.

At the beginning of the month it even exceeded 200 euros.

The Russian action is directed against 48 states, including all EU countries, but also the USA, Canada and Great Britain.

The announcement caused the Russian currency to appreciate.

Its rate rose from around 106 rubles per dollar to less than 96 rubles.

After the attack on Ukraine, it initially depreciated from an average rate of around 74 rubles to 130 rubles, but has recently strengthened significantly again.

A "clear breach of contract"?

The central bank and the Russian government now have a week to determine the modalities for the ruble payments, Putin said.

The West itself has devalued its currencies by freezing Russian assets abroad.

As a reaction to sanctions, the Russian government had already decided at the beginning of the month to settle financial obligations to "unfriendly states" such as bond debts only in rubles.

Currency risk management specialist 7-Orca sees several economic arguments in favor of Russia's move.

This forces foreign gas buyers to buy rubles on the foreign exchange market.

It is difficult to say to what extent the liquidity on the ruble market will be sufficient, says Ralfcircul, an analyst at Helaba.

"The market shouldn't be particularly low, because all Western countries are effectively left out." However, the Russian central bank could theoretically print unlimited rubles and sell them to the buyer countries in exchange for foreign currency, although the exchange rate is questionable.

The economist Jens Südekum wrote on the short message service Twitter that not much is changing substantially at first.

In the end, the foreign exchange ended up with the central bank.

The perverse thing is that they are sanctioned and their reserves in the West are frozen.

Now Putin is forcing the West to circumvent his sanctions itself.

This was "a real broadside," a retaliatory measure that not many would have expected in this form.

"We have to consider how deeply we can sanction the Russian central bank because we have to continue working with them," says Gunter Deuber, chief economist at Raiffeisenbank International.

It has always been said that Russia could ban the use of dollars or euros.

That's going to be more difficult now.