President Ruto on buying fuel from Russia; 'All options are available to us'

This comes as a number of nations, including the United States, are shunning away engagements with Russia following their invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking to BBC, President Ruto intimated that he will be considering all options in the move to tame the skyrocketing fuel prices that have forced Kenyans to dig deeper into their pockets after the fuel subsidy was scrapped.

"All options are available to us as a country. East Africa would be a good option but Kenya is what we are going to be focusing on," he said.

The commander-in-chief of the armed forces further noted that he intends to align with the market forces to rekindle fuel prices to affordable fuel prices, through bilateral ties.

"The strategy we have is to ensure that we work with the market forces on how we can have a government-to-government relationship that will get us fuel at probably Ksh 20 to Ksh 25 per cent cheaper than in the market," he said.

President Ruto noted that despite the high fuel prices invoked by the subsidy removal, he has harnessed the loopholes providing leeway for graft.

"Those are the interventions I am looking at but I had to remove the subsidies because they were a huge drain on resources that would be used for the development of the country and yet the prices were not coming down and it was generally distorting prices of fuel in the country and creating unnecessary shortages," he said.

He defended the decision noting that they managed to salvage resources which will be channelled to the large-scale development of the nation.

"We now have gotten rid of shortages, we haven't gotten rid of the high prices but we have done two things, we have saved money that was going down the drain with cartels in the subsidy program and we have eliminated shortages and I am now moving to the agenda of making sure that we have government-government relationships that will progressively begin the journey to bring the prices of fuel down."

The head-of-state went on to state that Kenya will work closely with countries in the East African block to have a seamless budget framework and improve the lives of East Africans.

"Kenya Kwanza is about doing what is right for the people of Kenya and that does not mean what is right for the people of Kenya is wrong for East Africans, it actually builds on what is good for Kenyans must be good for East Africans and that is the trajectory we are looking at," said Ruto.

"We are having a shared budget framework and we are looking at growing East Africa. It is no longer possible to do business in isolation of the rest of the globe and that is why it is wrong to say that we are going to do things in the exclusion of others."