Let me complete that sentence for you.... after Finland refused to pay in rubels because the signed gas import-export contract specified other currencies.
Didn't EU freeze all Russian dollar accounts? That basically means Russia never gets those dollar payments. Why would it keep delivering gas for free? Does that "contract" even mean anything then? By switching to rubles Russia actually helped EU nations with a legal way to keep paying for gas.
> there is a big difference between freezing access to a bank account and taking ownership of the funds.
No it’s not so big, because freezing can be unlimited in time and you can’t use that money. What point of having money on account if you can not use them? These are just numbers on the screen.
If your account can be frozen any time by the bank, it means you don’t really own the money, and the bank is not trustworthy.
Most of the European companies adopted the new scheme within their current contracts, so it was a technical thing. Russia just needed to be paid in currency that can not be stolen by some lunatic government.
It was not just a technical thing... it was unilateral change of a legal contract and blackmail by Russian regime that yet again demonstrated clearly that contracts and treaties mean nothing to it.
Actually all the sanctions from the west are unilateral change to thousands of contracts, and expropriation of russian assets is straightforward stealing.
Even freezing of central bank accounts is basically the unilateral unlawful change of contract.
Finland broke the contract with russian railroads, with russian electric providers, it cancelled the contract with RosAtom.
Additionally it started the process of joining NATO, which effectively breaks the peace treaty of 1948.
