President Vladimir Putin’s rouble payment scheme for natural gas is the prototype that the world’s largest country will extend to other major exports because the West has sealed the decline of the U.S. dollar by freezing Russian assets, the Kremlin said. Russia’s economy is facing the gravest crisis since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union after the United States and its allies imposed crippling sanctions due to Putin’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Putin’s main economic response so far was an order on March 23 for Russian gas exports to be paid in roubles, however the scheme allows purchasers to pay in the contracted currency which is then exchanged into roubles by Gazprombank. “It is the […]