On Wednesday, the European Union announced that it was making moves to exclude seven different Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system, in the lastest economic reprisals following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that began last Wednesday.
Although this move is significant, it is not the most severe financial action the EU and other international allies could have taken. Russia’s energy sector remains largely untouched. Europe relies heavily on natural gas and oil exports from Russia, and the Russian government relies heavily on the income from energy sales. As such, both the European Union and Russia have seemingly attempted to keep energy exports and imports as they stand untouched.
To date, the most significant penalty Russia’s energy sector has seen has been Germany’s decision not to certify Nord Stream 2—a large natural gas pipeline that was recently built but has yet to begin pumping gas.
Related: US and the West unleash sanctions worth hundreds of billions on Russia
What is SWIFT and how does removing Russian banks from it help Ukraine?
Banks and financial institutions have to have a secure way to transmit financial messages and payment instructions to one another in order to process payments, credits, and debits. While there is more than one way to do so, the largest financial messaging system in the world, known as SWIFT, is headquartered in Belgium. SWIFT’s ownership is split among more than 2,400 financial institutions and is used by a whopping 11,000 banks in 200 different countries. China has already established a competing system, though SWIFT remains in use for 70% of financial transfers even within China.
Removing Russian banks from SWIFT will make it very difficult for them to process payments across their borders. In other words, it makes it harder for Russia to participate in international trade, and in today’s increasingly connected global economy, that can have significant and far-reaching results. The intent behind this action is to punish Russia for its illegal invasion of Ukraine, which with added diplomatic and economic pressure elsewhere, many hope, may convince Russia to pull its troops back.
In fact, many nations were initially reluctant to remove Russia from SWIFT specifically because of how significant a financial blow it will deal to the nation, but it seems the decision to limit the removal to seven large financial institutions and to leave the energy sector largely untouched has become a compromise the international community feels comfortable with.
Related: The origin of America’s security obligations to Ukraine
“All these banks that we have listed under SWIFT… they are all based on their connection to the state and the implicit connection to the war effort. We have not gone for a blanket ban across the whole banking system,” A senior EU official told Reuters.
The Russian banks removed from SWIFT are: Russia’s second-largest—VTB (VTBR.MM), Bank Otrkitie, Novikombank, Promsvyazbank (PSKBI.MM), Bank Rossiya, Sovcombank and VEB. They will each be given 10 days to transition out of SWIFT operations. Russia’s largest lender, Sberbank (SBER.MM), and its natural-gas oriented Gazprombank were spared.
I want to give testimony of the professional services rendered by American Digital Forensic Firm TheHackersPro team, the hackers pro smart contract developers helped me recover my 56Btc stolen from my trezor wallet. The smart contract developers at thehackerspro were able to carry out triangulation from the scammers outsourced wallets at a time when i thought it was impossible. I opened a case with their smart contract customer support on the hackerspro website, which was referred by kravitz hein and they eventually came to my aid.
Hello everyone, Are you looking for a professional trader, forex and binary manager who will help you trade and manager your account with good and massive amount of profit in return. you can contact Mr. Anderson for your investment plan, for he helped me earned $8,600usd with little investment funds. Mr Anderson you’re the best trader I can recommend for anyone who wants to invest and trade with a genuine trader, he also helps in recovery of loss funds..you can contact him on his whatsapp: (+447883246472) Email:(tdameritrade077@gmail.com)
I advice you shouldn’t hesitate He’s great.
@#@#@
Hi everyone my name is Anna Eriksen i want to share my amazing testimony on how Dr Ayoba blessed my life, i am a sale girl in supper market, i have been playing lottery game for long now and i don’t usually win, i came across a testimony of someone testifying about how Dr Ayoba prayed for him and gave him a lottery game to play and he won big amount of money, so i also decided to try my luck, i contact him through his WhatsApp number and he assured me that he will help me, he told me it will take him 24 hours to pray for me, so on the after the 24 hours he gave me some lottery numbers to play and i went to play the game so on that faithful day i went to check the game to my greatest surprise i won a very big amount $434.2 million that changed my life and my status, i quit working as a sale girl in the supper market and i became a business owner. I want you out there to also contact him for your lucky game. You can reach him via his Email drayobasolutionhome@gmail.com or WhatsApp him on +1 (708) 736‑1766
A few months ago, I felt so depressed, I got frustrated with bad credits, but then I contacted HACK VANISH by phone: +1 (7 4 7) 2 9 3 – 8 5 1 4 and email: HACK VANISH (@) GMAIL. COM. I found out about hack vanish services through positive reviews read on some credit blogs, in a blink of an eye this great hacker restored my credit score from 509 to 784 in all 3 major credit bureaus, they got removed evictions and foreclosures, my LexisNexis and Chex system was repaired respectively, a few days later I received an email confirming the approval of my mortgage loan, it was quite surprising because I never thought it was possible. Today, I can confidently say that 2021 was a banner year for my husband and I as we now own a new house and a new SUV courtesy of HACK VANISH, I would definitely recommend him to anyone in need of a genuine Hacker.