While condemning the Russian president Vladimir Putin’s move to lay
siege across Ukraine, the EU Commission committed to undertake a series
of measures to isolate Russia from the international financial system.
The European Commission announced to remove a number of Russian banks
from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) messaging system, aimed at hindering Russia’s capacity to carry out cross-border payments.
In a joint statement released
by the European Commission, leaders from France, Germany, Italy, the
United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States highlighted their shared
interest in defending Ukraine from the war against Russia:
“We will hold Russia to account and collectively ensure that this war is a strategic failure for Putin.”
While
condemning the Russian president Vladimir Putin’s move to lay siege
across Ukraine, the EU Commission committed to undertake a series of
measures to isolate Russia from the international financial system.
President
of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen announced five proactive
measures against Russian authorities, starting with the removal of an
undisclosed number of Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system.
First, we commit to ensuring that a certain number of Russian banks are removed from SWIFT.⁰
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) February 26, 2022
It will stop them from operating worldwide and effectively block Russian exports and imports.
In addition to cutting Russia’s ties with SWIFT, the EU Commission
will “paralyze the assets of Russia’s central bank,” creating another
financial barrier for the Russian central bank to liquidate assets. As
for the third measure, EU Commission stated:
“We commit
to taking measures to limit the sale of citizenship— so-called golden
passports—that let wealthy Russians connected to the Russian government
become citizens of our countries and gain access to our financial
systems.”
The EU Commission will soon launch a
transatlantic task force to ensure effective implementation of all the
sanctions, which primarily aims to freeze the overseas assets of Russian
officials, elites and their family members. As a fifth measure, the
Commission plans to increase coordination against disinformation and
other forms of hybrid warfare.
Related: Crypto could bypass President Biden's 'devastating' sanctions on Russian banks and elites: Report
As
global markets continue to impose new financial restrictions on Russia,
a Cointelegraph report from Feb. 24 highlights how Russian billionaires
could potentially circumvent any sanctions put forth by the world
leaders by using cryptocurrencies.
One
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix) February 24, 2022
thing to listen for this afternoon is whether these sanctions will
include barring Russia from the SWIFT messaging system, which would cut
it off from almost all international financial transactions.
(Except crypto.) https://t.co/x952GNxbah
“If a wealthy individual is concerned that their accounts
may be frozen due to sanctions, they can simply hold their wealth in
Bitcoin in order to be protected from such actions.”
Now
that Russian banks risk getting barred from SWIFT’s international
financial network, crypto may be the key for rich individuals to evade
sanctions. Quantum Economics founder and CEO Mati Greenspan said:
source link : https://cointelegraph.com/news/eu-commission-to-remove-russian-banks-from-swift-cross-border-network
