Interesting facts
According to the portal Brasil 247, Russia has just put concrete numbers on what seemed unlikely just a few years ago. Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk revealed that 95% of all business with China is already conducted in national currencies without going through the dollar, without using the Western financial system, and without intermediaries in New York or London. This data was released by the state agency TASS on Friday (3) and confirms that dedollarization between the two countries has ceased to be rhetoric and has become a fact.
What makes the number even more significant is the speed with which this has happened. According to Overchuk, the transition was “practically completed” in the last four years, a period that coincides exactly with the post-invasion of Ukraine and the escalation of Western sanctions against Moscow. The business with China is just the most visible tip: with the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), the index of transactions in national currencies reached 91%, and with the EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union), 93%.
The process did not happen by accident. The dedollarization of business with China and Eurasian partners has become a strategic axis of Russian economic policy, driven by a combination of external pressure and deliberate political decision.
While Brazilians work more than 44 hours a week, Norwegians leave the office at 3 PM and are now testing a four-day workweek with full pay and no loss of productivity.
A legend of Brazilian TV is 75 years old, returned to narrate the World Cup for SBT, and still finds time to manage a farm of over 100 hectares in Rio Grande do Sul where she produces award-winning wines, olive oil, and raises cattle.
Family buys mansion destroyed by fire for $1.5 million, faces over 500 days of construction, transforms loss into high-end property, and leaves neighbors in awe.
The world consumes 50 billion tons of sand per year and no one is monitoring it: the UN warns that the second most used resource on the planet after water is running out and has even created an international mafia.
When the West imposed financial sanctions on Russia by cutting Russian banks from the SWIFT system and freezing dollar and euro reserves, Moscow was forced to build alternatives in record time.
China, as Russia’s largest trading partner, was the natural starting point. The two countries had already been increasing the use of the yuan and the ruble in bilateral transactions, but the sanctions drastically accelerated the process.
In four years, business with China has almost entirely migrated to national currencies, with the creation of payment channels that bypass Western banks and operate outside the regulatory reach of Washington.
What was an exception has become the rule, and the dollar, which dominated these transactions, has been pushed to a residual share of 5%.
The data presented by Overchuk paints a clear picture. In business with China, 95% of transactions use national currencies. With the EAEU, which includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan, it is 93%.
With the CIS, which brings together former Soviet republics, it is 91%. In all cases, the dollar and euro have been practically eliminated from trade exchanges.
In practice, this means that Russia has built a parallel financial ecosystem to conduct its business with China and its entire regional sphere of influence.
This system includes its own payment mechanisms, bilateral currency agreements, and banking infrastructure that connects Moscow to Beijing without relying on any Western nodes.
For the countries involved, the immediate advantage is obvious: no transaction can be blocked, frozen, or monitored by Western governments.
Western sanctions were designed to isolate Russia financially and force a change in geopolitical behavior.
In terms of dedollarization, however, they produced the opposite effect: instead of weakening Moscow, they accelerated the creation of alternatives that now operate without the dollar. Business with China has become the most successful laboratory of this process.
The problem for the West is that reversing this transition is practically impossible. Once two countries organize all their payment infrastructure in national currencies, there is no incentive to return to the dollar, especially when the dollar has come to be perceived as an instrument of coercion.
Russia has learned that relying on the Western financial system is an existential risk, and business with China has proven that viable alternatives exist. Even if sanctions were lifted tomorrow, it is unlikely that Moscow would expose its trade transactions to Washington’s control again.
The Russian case does not exist in a vacuum. The speed with which business with China has been dedollarized serves as a reference for other countries seeking to reduce their dependence on the Western-dominated financial system.
Emerging nations observe the example and calculate how far their own transactions could migrate to national currencies, especially in a scenario where unilateral sanctions have become a recurring geopolitical tool.
Cooperation between Russia, China, and regional blocs like the EAEU is likely to deepen in the coming years.
Overchuk described the creation of a payment system independent of Western currencies and banking services as a “strategic axis” of Eurasian cooperation, a language that signals that the goal is not only to survive sanctions but to build a permanent and exportable financial architecture.
For the dollar, which sustains its hegemony partly through its omnipresence in international trade, every percentage point lost in business with China and its allies is a precedent that others may follow.
What do you think: is dedollarization between Russia and China a real threat to the dollar’s dominance or a phenomenon limited to these two countries? Leave your opinion in the comments.
Falo sobre construção, mineração, minas brasileiras, petróleo e grandes projetos ferroviários e de engenharia civil. Diariamente escrevo sobre curiosidades do mercado brasileiro.
© 2026 Click Petróleo e Gás – All rights reserved