Russian stocks lost 80% of their value in two weeks before Western stock exchanges took Russia-linked exchange-traded funds offline in early March. The Moscow Stock Exchange closed on February 25, the day after Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.

A longer-term Russian strategy to save its market appears to be playing out behind the headlines. The government could form a “national team” to buy shares, although it is not yet ready. The Kremlin announced on March 1 that the National Welfare Fund would launch up to 1 trillion rubles ($10.3 billion) on the market.

A more ambitious idea is to create separate domestic and foreign markets, similar to the A-share split in China and Hong Kong. This could take shape as early as next month. This could allow residents and investors of more friendly foreign states, such as China and the Persian Gulf, to acquire stocks cheaply without the multitude of sanctions and restrictions surrounding the main board.

When the market reopens, a dozen stocks with primary overseas listings will not trade at all. This includes most of Russia’s tech elite: dominant internet platform Yandex (YNDX); TCS Group Holding (TCS.UK), parent company of online bank Tinkoff; and online retailer Ozon (OZON), among others. Short selling is prohibited for all investors. Otherwise, the free market is back.

For now, the Russian financial authorities are improvising damage control. They may have to improvise more after Putin announced on Wednesday that hostile countries will have to pay for Russian natural gas in rubles, not dollars or euros. He gave his government a week to engineer the changeover.

As with stocks, these 48 new enemies represent the vast majority of Russian gas customers. Energy exports to the European Union amounted to more than $100 billion last year. Requiring payment in rubles would violate half a century of practice dating back to the Soviet era, not to mention contracts that Russian export monopoly Gazprom (GAZP. Russia) has honored in all political weather.

“Contracts stipulate the currency of payment, primarily in euros, and this cannot be changed without negotiation between the parties,” says Jonathan Stern, who founded the gas research program at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. .

Italy, one of Russia’s traditional supporters in Europe, is “not inclined to pay for gas in rubles”, commented an adviser to Prime Minister Mario Draghi.

Gazprom’s euro and dollar revenues are vital to replenishing Russia’s own currency reserves, which have been depleted by the freezing of most of them by Western countries as punishment for the invasion of Russia. ‘Ukraine.

If the seller and buyer agreed to switch to rubles, they would still have to finance the exchange in a way that does not violate the sweeping sanctions imposed on Russian banks. That would be “awkward,” Stern says.

In effect.

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