Lavrov Says 97% of Russia’s BRICS Trade Has Escaped the Dollar: De-Dollarization Revolution or Selective Statistic?
Sergey Lavrov says 97% of Russia's trade with BRICS, SCO and Eurasian partners uses national currencies as Moscow claims broad support over Ukraine. The figures reveal adaptation—but not the dollar's disappearance.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says 97% of Russia's trade with BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Union and other partners is now settled in national currencies. He presented the shift as proof that states have “lots of options” to prevent the U.S. dollar from being used for blackmail and oppression.
The number is striking, but its denominator matters. Lavrov was describing Russia's trade with a selected set of partner economies, not 97% of all commerce conducted inside BRICS or the SCO. It does not mean the dollar has vanished from world trade, global reserves or commodity pricing. It shows how rapidly one heavily sanctioned country has rerouted payments within friendly or non-aligned networks.
There is independent evidence for that adaptation. Reuters reported that rouble-rupee payments account for about 96% of Russia-India bilateral trade, according to Sberbank's senior representative in India. Twenty-two Russian and 17 Indian banks reportedly service the mechanism, with most payments completed within minutes. Moscow and Beijing have similarly expanded rouble-yuan settlement.
Sanctions created the incentive. After Russian banks lost access to parts of the Western financial system following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, using dollars or euros became slower, riskier and sometimes impossible. National-currency settlement allowed Russian oil, fertilizer, machinery and other trade to continue without every payment crossing a U.S.-linked bank.
That is a real reduction in American leverage at the margin. The dollar's central role gives Washington powerful enforcement reach because banks and businesses fear losing access to U.S. markets. When countries build direct payment rails, local-currency credit and alternative messaging systems, some transactions become harder to interrupt.
But replacement is not the same as avoidance. The dollar remains deeply liquid, widely convertible and supported by enormous capital markets. A rouble-rupee trade can still be priced by reference to a dollar benchmark. Exporters receiving a currency they cannot freely spend or convert may accumulate balances, accept discounts or devise complicated reinvestment arrangements. Russia and India previously struggled with precisely that imbalance.
BRICS is also not a single geopolitical will. It includes Russia and Iran, but also India, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, Indonesia and other governments with different relationships to Washington and different views of the Ukraine war. Some oppose Western sanctions or call for negotiation without endorsing Russia's invasion. China offers Moscow strategic and economic backing, while India buys Russian oil but also maintains defense and technology relations with the United States.
Russia's statement that many BRICS countries offered “support” regarding Ukraine therefore needs detail. Support could mean humanitarian proposals, diplomatic contact, sympathy with Moscow's objections to NATO, opposition to sanctions, or endorsement of a particular peace formula. It is not evidence that BRICS collectively approved Russia's territorial claims or offered military assistance. No public list was attached to the claim.
The bloc's appeal lies partly in avoiding forced choices. Members can advocate a multipolar financial system while disagreeing on war. That flexibility expands participation, but it also limits BRICS' ability to act as a coherent alliance.
For Washington, dismissing de-dollarization entirely would be complacent. Repeated use of financial sanctions encourages targeted states to create alternatives. Yet declaring the dollar defeated because Russia no longer uses it for most friendly-country trade confuses a sanctions workaround with a global monetary transition.
The most informative measures are not political percentages alone. Analysts should examine invoicing currency, final settlement currency, financing, liquidity, reserve holdings, exchange-rate costs and whether outside companies voluntarily use the new rails when sanctions pressure is absent.
Reserve-currency status is especially different from bilateral settlement. Central banks hold dollars because they need liquid assets during crises; companies borrow in dollars because markets are deep; commodity traders use dollar benchmarks because counterparties accept them. A transaction settled in rupees can reduce sanctions exposure without creating a rupee-denominated bond market able to absorb global savings. This is why de-dollarization can advance in payments while dollar dominance in finance erodes far more slowly.
There is also a political feedback loop. The more Washington threatens secondary sanctions, the stronger the incentive to experiment with alternatives. The more Russia describes every workaround as a new world order, the more cautious countries such as India may become about appearing inside an anti-American bloc. BRICS expansion increases economic weight while making consensus on currency and Ukraine harder.
What to watch next
Watch whether Russia publishes the trade base behind 97%, whether BRICS develops interoperable payment infrastructure and whether India and China expand settlement beyond Russian commodities. Also watch the alleged Ukraine “support”: do named governments adopt Moscow's terms, or merely keep relations open? Is de-dollarization becoming a durable global alternative, or a collection of bilateral systems built mainly to survive Western pressure?