News Analysis The West has rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demand that gas payments be made in rubles. China is offering the yuan, but prospects are dim. On March 23, Moscow listed 48 countries as “unfriendly” and said it would require these countries to pay for commodity purchases in rubles. Those countries— including European Union member states, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United States, Taiwan, Ukraine, Switzerland, and Japan—accounted for 70 percent of the national gas company Gazprom’s 2021 export revenue. Typically, 58 percent of Gazprom’s gross gas sales abroad were in euros, and 39 percent were in U.S. dollars, with close to zero in yuan. Moscow requiring to be paid in rubles is an unprecedented attempt to buoy a failing currency and rescue the Russian economy. At the same time, Putin decreed that outgoing payments for trade and debt service to “unfriendly nations” …