The Russian ruble is sitting pretty right now, having regained its pre-sanctions value and set to become a major commodity currency. Photo Credit: The Cradle<\/p>\n
Rublegas is the commodity currency du jour and it isn\u2019t nearly as complicated as NATO pretends. If Europe wants gas, all it needs to do is send its Euros to a Russian account inside Russia.<\/em><\/p>\n Saddam, Gaddafi, Iran, Venezuela \u2013 they all tried but couldn\u2019t do it. But Russia is on a different level altogether.<\/p>\n The beauty of the game-changing, gas-for-rubles, geoeconomic jujitsu applied by Moscow is its stark simplicity.<\/p>\n Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s presidential decree<\/a> on new payment terms for energy products, predictably, was misunderstood by the collective west. The Russian government is not exactly demanding straightforward payment for gas in rubles. What Moscow wants is to be paid at Gazprombank in Russia, in its currency of choice, and not at a Gazprom account in any banking institution in western capitals.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the essence of less-is-more sophistication. Gazprombank will sell the foreign currency \u2013 dollars or euros \u2013 deposited by their customers on the Moscow Stock Exchange and credit it to different accounts in rubles within Gazprombank.<\/p>\n What this means in practice is that foreign currency should be sent directly to Russia, and not accumulated in a foreign bank \u2013 where it can easily be held hostage, or frozen, for that matter.<\/p>\n All these transactions from now on should be transferred to a Russian jurisdiction \u2013 thus eliminating the risk of payments being interrupted or outright blocked.<\/p>\n It\u2019s no wonder the subservient European Union (EU) apparatus \u2013 actively engaged in destroying their own national economies on behalf of Washington\u2019s interests \u2013 is intellectually unequipped to understand the complex matter of exchanging euros into rubles.<\/p>\n Gazprom made things easier this Friday, sending official notifications to its counterparts in the west and Japan.<\/p>\n Putin himself was forced to explain in writing to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz how it all works.<\/p>\n Once again, very simple: Customers open an account with Gazprombank in Russia. Payments are made in foreign currency \u2013 dollars or euros \u2013 converted into rubles according to the current exchange rate, and transferred to different Gazprom accounts.<\/p>\n Thus it is 100 percent guaranteed that Gazprom will be paid.<\/p>\n That\u2019s in stark contrast to what the United States was forcing the Europeans to do: pay for Russian gas in Gazprom accounts in Europe, which would then be instantly frozen. These accounts would only be unblocked with the end of Operation Z, Russia\u2019s military ops in Ukraine.<\/p>\n Yet the Americans want the war to go on indefinitely, to \u201cbog down\u201d Moscow as if this was Afghanistan in the 1980s, and have strictly forbidden the Ukrainian Comedian in front of a green screen somewhere \u2013 certainly not Kiev \u2013 to accept any ceasefire or peace deal.<\/p>\n So Gazprom accounts in Europe would continue to be frozen.<\/p>\n As Scholz was still trying to understand the obvious, his economic minions went berserk, floating the idea of nationalizing Gazprom\u2019s subsidiaries \u2013 Gazprom Germania and Wingas \u2013 in case Russia decides to halt the gas flow.<\/p>\n This is ridiculous. It\u2019s as if Berlin functionaries believe that Gazprom subsidiaries produce natural gas in centrally heated offices across Germany.<\/p>\n The new rubles-for-gas mechanism does not in any way violate existing contracts. Yet, as Putin warned, existing contracts may indeed be stopped: \u201cIf such [ruble] payments are not made, we will consider this to be the buyers\u2019 failure to perform commitments with all ensuing implications.\u201d<\/p>\n Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov was adamant that the mechanism will not be reversed under the current, dire circumstances. Still that does not mean that the gas flow would be instantly cut off. Payment in rubles will be expected from \u2018The Unfriendlies\u2019 \u2013 a list of hostile states that includes mostly the US, Canada, Japan and the EU \u2013 in the second half of April and early May.<\/p>\n For the overwhelming majority of the Global South, the overarching Big Picture is crystal clear: an Atlanticist oligarchy is refusing to buy the Russian gas essential to the wellbeing of the population of Europe, while fully engaged in the weaponization of toxic inflation rates against the same population.<\/p>\n This gas-for-rubles mechanism \u2013 call it Rublegas \u2013 is just the first concrete building block in the construction of an alternative financial\/monetary system, in tandem with many other mechanisms: ruble-rupee trade; the Saudi petroyuan; the Iran-Russia SWIFT- bypassing mechanism; and the most important of all, the China-Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) design of a comprehensive financial\/monetary system, with the first draft to be presented in the next few days.<\/p>\nBeyond Rublegas<\/strong><\/h3>\n