Russia says to ditch dollar and euro in bilateral trade

“Against the growing geopolitical pressure from the ‘collective West’, the only way to guarantee stable trade, economic, and investment ties between Russia and its partners is to avoid the use of currencies that have become ‘toxic’, primarily the US dollar and the euro, and switch to settlements in acceptable alternatives, primarily in national currencies,” Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin stated in an interview with TASS.

The diplomat noted that the current global financial system built by Washington has proven to be “unsuitable for the conditions of a multipolar world order and has essentially become an instrument for achieving political goals of one group of countries.”

“It is quite obvious that in the current conditions the West intends to continue to abuse its privileged position,” Pankin continued.

“It is encouraging to see that many nations, seeing extraordinary and illegitimate sanctions against Russia, are thinking about the need to de-dollarize foreign economic activity to ensure their sovereignty. As it turned out, if there is political will, the issue is quite solvable,” he added.

On February 24, President Vladimir Putin stated in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation. The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories.

The US, the EU, the UK and a number of other states have impose sanctions against Russian legal entities and individuals.

Russia has officially become the most sanctioned country in the world, surpassing Iran, Syria and North Korea, after launching the military operation against Ukraine.