The European Union, United States and other western nations on Saturday announced they would cut off a “certain number of Russian banks” from the SWIFT international payments system as well as impose restrictions on Russia’s Central Bank.
Some European allies had previously expressed concern that disconnecting Russian banks’ access to the primary system for global financial transactions would cause collateral economic damage.
France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Canada joined the decision to “ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally,” according to the joint statement.
The group also said they would impose “restrictive measures that will prevent the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves in ways that undermine the impact of our sanctions.”
“We will paralyse the assets of Russia’s central bank,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “This will freeze its transactions. And it will make it impossible for the Central Bank to liquidate its assets.”
Biden and other allied leaders initially resisted calls to boot Russia from the network.
“The sanctions we’ve imposed exceed SWIFT,” Biden said on Thursday. “Let’s have a conversation in another month or so to see if they’re working.”
In coordination with the G7, the U.S. on Thursday imposed severe new sanctions that include sweeping export controls and a freeze on billions of dollars’ worth of Russian assets.
The EU, United States and United Kingdom separately announced on Friday that they would impose sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
