MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/. Western nations have actually stolen more than 300 billion US dollars from Russia when they seized the money meant to pay for Russian gas, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Al Arabiya TV on Friday.
"The contracts that were signed before this situation provided for payments in dollars and euros. These payments were transferred directly to Gazprom accounts and were kept in Western banks. When aster the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine our Western ‘friends’ stole more than 300 billion dollars from us, as a matter of fact, they stole what they have paid for gas. In other words, they have been using our gas for free for all these years," he said.
He stressed that Russia has decided to switch to rubles in payments for its gas in order to stop "the shameless robbery" by the West. "London, Washington, Brussels are looking at seizing the money they have frozen to transfer it to someone else," he noted.
According to the Russia top diplomat, nothing has actually changed for the buyers of Russian gas. He recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree "saying that from this moment payments should be done not to Gazprom’s accounts in Western banks but to Gazprom-bank, in dollars and euros." "Nothing has changed. The same sum in a foreign policy under the corresponding contract. And then, euros and dollars will be transferred to the ruble account in Gazprom-bank," he added.