On March 23rd, Putin announced that Russia would only accept payment for natural gas transactions with "unfriendly countries" in rubles, and the price of natural gas in Europe soared by 34%, reaching € 0/32.74 per MWh/kloc.
After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, NATO led by the United States began to impose comprehensive sanctions on Russia, and many fields such as energy, culture, science and technology, commerce and so on were hit and suppressed in all directions. Among them, the United States and NATO made it clear that moving some Russian domestic banks out of the SWIFT system will undoubtedly throw a deadly "financial nuclear bomb" at the Russian economy, making it impossible for Russia to conduct normal trade settlement with other countries in a short time, which will have a great impact on the Russian domestic economy.
On March 6, Russian media released a message saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a list of anti-sanctions that day. For those countries (regions) that impose sanctions on Russia, Russia has the right to let them repay their debts in rubles, because the sanctions imposed by the United States and NATO have caused the ruble to depreciate by nearly 30%, causing huge losses to the Russian economy.
Paying off debts with rubles is a warning issued by Putin to American and European countries. The next step is energy sanctions. The United States and European countries have also imposed comprehensive sanctions on Russian energy exports, prohibiting the purchase of oil and natural gas from Russia. Russia is rich in natural gas resources. Russia is the world's largest producer of natural gas, with a natural gas reserve of 48 trillion cubic meters, ranking first in the world. In fact, European countries are highly dependent on Russian natural gas, with some imports accounting for 25% and some even as high as 100%. However, the EU did not expect that Russia directly interrupted the supply of natural gas to the EU. Russia 100% cut off supply has stunned the whole European country, and it is impossible to find a substitute in a short time. As a result, the price of natural gas in Europe soared by 34%.
However, China is not very dependent on Russian gas. With the increasingly serious environmental pollution, China has been vigorously developing clean energy in recent years, and has made great breakthroughs in the fields of solar energy, wind energy and nuclear energy. In the power industry, China has reduced coal-fired power generation, and the next step is to reduce the use of natural gas. Therefore, the 34% surge in European natural gas prices has no impact on our country, let alone our life!