Germany may struggle to take a similarly hardline, however. The Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, warned on Wednesday that being unable to import Russian gas would put “hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk, [and] entire industries would be on the brink”.

He said: “We will end this dependence [on Russian oil, coal and gas] as quickly as we can, but to do that from one day to the next would mean plunging our country and all of Europe into a recession.”

The Russian rouble has lost as much as a third of its value since the Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine.

Mr Putin said on Wednesday that Russia must halt using the “compromised currencies” in natural gas transactions. 

“It’s pretty clear that it makes no sense for us to supply our goods to the European Union, to the US and receive payments in dollars, euros, [or] other currencies,” he added.

However, the Russian president insisted that the move was not an attempt by the Kremlin to cut the West off from Russian natural gas.

“I want to emphasise that Russia will definitely continue to supply natural gas in line with the volumes and prices and pricing mechanisms set forth in the existing contracts,” Mr Putin said.

The EU’s dependence on Russian gas shows no sign of slowing despite the conflict in Ukraine. In the first half of March, Gazprom exported an average of 500m cubic metres a day to countries outside the former Soviet bloc such as EU nations, China and Turkey.

Europe averaged 384 million cubic metres a day, Gazprom data showed.