The European Union and the United States agreed to disconnect several Russian banks from the SWIFT interbank payment system, which was announced on Saturday, February 26, by the press service Cabinet of Germany following negotiations between Western leaders.
“Tonight (Saturday), the United States, France, Canada, Italy, the UK, the European Commission and Germany decided to impose additional tough financial sanctions against Russia in response to the ongoing attacks by Russian troops in Ukraine. All Russian banks that have already fallen under the sanctions of the international community, and, if necessary, other Russian banks will be excluded from the SWIFT international payment system. This is intended to isolate these institutions from international financial flows, which will significantly limit their global activities.
In addition, the West may limit the ability of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation to support the ruble through international financial transactions. Citizens of the Russian Federation will be banned from obtaining “golden passports”, thanks to which wealthy people and their families could receive European citizenship in exchange for investments, the statement said.
On February 24, the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said that the decision to include the disconnection of Russia from SWIFT in the new anti-Russian package of sanctions would be made by the leaders of the EU countries.
Earlier, US President Joe Biden said that Europe does not want to disconnect the Russian Federation from SWIFT now, since US sanctions are comparable in scale to this action.
According to CNN, EU countries have previously disagreed on the issue of Russia’s disconnection from the SWIFT interbank system. Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania have spoken out in favor of such measures being included in European sanctions, but Germany, Italy, Hungary and Cyprus disagree due to closer economic ties with Russia.
#number #Russian #banks #disconnected #SWIFT #system