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Rubles for gas: Putin's demand of 23 March 2022
Summary
A look back at the day Russia's president told countries he deemed unfriendly to pay for natural gas in rubles, set against the diplomatic signals of the preceding days.
What did Russia's demand for payment in rubles signal on 23 March 2022? On that date, President Vladimir Putin demanded that countries he deemed "unfriendly" pay for deliveries of natural gas in rubles. The demand belonged to the economic dimension of the war that followed the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The announcement came after two developments on 21 March 2022 that showed how far apart the sides stood on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.
Mariupol and the ultimatum
On 21 March 2022, Ukraine rejected a Russian ultimatum to surrender its control of Mariupol. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Kyiv had already informed the Russian side of its answer. The siege of the city was then under way.
A signal on NATO
On the same day, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would consider dropping Ukraine's request to join NATO in exchange for a ceasefire. The statement set out a possible basis for ending the fighting, even as Kyiv refused to hand over Mariupol.
What the sequence shows
Taken together, the three reports show pressure being applied on several fronts at once: a military ultimatum rejected, a conditional diplomatic opening from Kyiv, and a financial demand from Moscow aimed at countries it labelled unfriendly. The reports from those days do not say how buyers of Russian gas responded to the ruble demand, so the immediate consequences of Putin's announcement on 23 March 2022 remained to be seen.
