Asian and European importers of Russian gas remained puzzled on Thursday after Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier that “unfriendly” countries must pay for Russian gas in roubles. There are over 45 countries on Russia’s “unfriendly” list, including Austria, Germany, and Japan, where politicians and gas buyers on Thursday expressed confusion about how to handle Putin’s demand to pay for Russian energy in roubles. Putin instructed the Russian central bank and the government to develop a mechanism to make the ruble payments within a week, while saying that Russian energy giant Gazprom would be ordered to make the needed changes to contracts. Eswar Prasad, a trade policy professor at Cornell University, told Reuters that while “foreign importers would no doubt be happy to pay for their purchases of Russia’s exports in a currency that is collapsing in value,” getting access to roubles in a way that does not violate Western …