makes sense to me. why would russia choose to sell their gas for a money supply that they're not allowed to use because the creators of dollars and euros have said russia can't buy anything with them;

Russia’s insistence that its “unfriendly” nations pay in rubles for Russian natural gas risks disrupting European supplies as soon as this week as the deadline set by Putin for moving to ruble payments is drawing closer. 

Europe, which depends on Russian natural gas for more than one-third of its demand—with some countries, including the biggest economy Germany, depending on Russia for half of its consumption—has rejected the gas-for-rubles idea, saying it would be a breach of contracts to switch the currency in payments.   

Russia, for its part, says it demands only rubles for its gas and will not ship gas for free.  

Europe’s gas prices continued rising on Tuesday, two days ahead of the March 31 deadline Vladimir Putin has set for the government, Gazprom, and the central bank of Russia to make the arrangements for payments in rubles from the so-called “hostile” countries. 

The Russian President—whose list of “hostile” states includes the United States, all EU member states, Switzerland, Canada, Norway, South Korea, Japan, and many others—orderedlast week the central bank to develop a system for payments in rubles within a week. 

“The Russian government together with the Bank of Russia and Gazprom PJSC should implement a set of measures on changing the currency of payment for natural gas supplies to the countries of the European Union and other states that imposed restrictive measures against the citizens of the Russian Federation and Russian legal entities, to the Russian ruble,” Putin said this week per a Kremlin document cited by Russian news agency TASS. 

Putin has also ordered the Russian government to approve a move on changing Gazprom’s current contracts to reflect the change in the currency to the Russian ruble. This should be done “with supply volumes, prices, and price formation principles stipulated by contracts maintained” by March 31. 

Commenting on Putin’s rubles-for-Russian-gas plan, the EU and leaders of the biggest economies in Europe said that changing the currency of the payments would be a breach of contract and that Europe would not be blackmailed into buying gas with rubles.......read more....