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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 accountable and collectively make sure that this war is a strategic failure for Putin."
While condemning the russian president vladimir putin's attempt to lay siege to ukraine, the eu commission is committed to taking a series of measures to isolate russia from the international financial system.
Chairman of the european commission, ursula von der leyen has announced five proactive actions against russian authorities, starting with the withdrawal of an undisclosed number of russian banks from the rapid messaging system.
First, we are committed to ensuring that a number of Russian banks are eliminated rapidly.?
It will stop them from operating worldwide and effectively block Russian exports and imports.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) February 26, 2022
As well as severing russia's ties with swift, the european commission "will paralyze the assets of the russian central bank", creating another financial barrier for the russian central bank to liquidate the assets. As regards the third measure, the European Commission said:
“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 european commission will soon launch a trans-atlantic working group to ensure the effective implementation of all sanctions, it is primarily intended to freeze the foreign assets of russian officials, the elite and their families. Fifth, it plans to increase coordination against misinformation 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 the sanctions put forward by the world leaders by using cryptocurrencies.
What we need to know this afternoon is whether these sanctions will include russia's exclusion from the express message system, that would cut it off from nearly all international financial transactions.
(Except crypto.) https://t.co/x952GNxbah
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix) February 24, 2022
“If a wealthy individual fears that their accounts will be frozen because of penalties, they can simply hold their bitcoin wealth for protection against such actions."
With Russian banks at risk of being denied access to SWIFT's international financial network, cryptography may be key for wealthy individuals to avoid sanctions. Quantum Economics founder and CEO Mati Greenspan stated:
