The U.S., European Union, and United Kingdom have agreed to block “selected” Russian banks from the SWIFT global financial messaging system.
A Ukrainian soldier walks past debris of a burning military truck, on a street in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022. Russian troops stormed toward Ukraine's capital Saturday, and street fighting broke out as city officials urged residents to take shelter.
Saturday’s move includes cutting key Russian banks out of the SWIFT financial messaging system, which daily moves countless billions of dollars around more than 11,000 banks and other financial institutions around the world. The fine print of the sanctions was still being ironed out over the weekend, officials said, as they work to limit the impact of the restrictions on other economies and European purchases of Russian energy.
Announcing the measures in Brussels, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she would push the bloc to “paralyze the assets of Russia’s Central bank” so that its transactions would be frozen. Cutting several commercial banks from SWIFT “will ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally,” she added.
As another measure, the allies announced a commitment “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 group also announced the formation this week of a trans-Atlantic task force to ensure that these and other sanctions on Russia are implemented effectively through information sharing and asset freezes.
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