The United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union increased sanctions against Russia on Saturday, saying they would cut access to the SWIFT international payment system if Russia maintained its assault on Ukraine.
On Saturday, the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Canada agreed to remove several Russian banks from the SWIFT payments system, unleashing what the French finance minister dubbed a “financial nuclear bomb” because of the harm it would inflict to Russia and its trading partners.
The newest set of sanctions came after the US Treasury Department said that it was targeting Russia’s financial system’s “essential infrastructure” by penalising two of its largest banks, state-owned Sberbank and VTB. Otkritie, Sovcombank, and Novikombank, as well as certain senior officials at state-owned institutions, are also sanctioned.
Within 30 days, US institutions must break their correspondent banking relationships with Russia’s largest lender, Sberbank, which allows banks to make payments to one another and move money around the world.
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