Mykhailo Podoliak, the adviser to the head of the President's Office, called the transfer of gas payments in Russia to rubles and the rejection of currency as another step towards escalation.

"The Russian Federation has opened an anti-European front. Financial. Putin announced the transfer of payments for gas into rubles and the rejection of dollars and euros, which will provoke operational failures, pressure on public opinion. This is the second step towards escalation. The first is threats of strikes on European logistics centers helping Ukraine," Podoliak wrote on Twitter.

As reported, on March 23, Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with the government, decided to transfer payments for Russian gas export supplies to unfriendly countries into Russian rubles and instructed the Central Bank and the government to determine the procedure for buying rubles on the domestic market of the Russian Federation by buyers of Russian gas within a week.