The displayed unity of the Twenty-Seven in their response to the Russian attack on Ukraine, as often, poorly conceals certain cracks.
In the arsenal of economic and financial sanctions envisaged for weeks, the one that experts describe as a “
nuclear weapon
” divides Europeans.
It has become in a few days a kind of political totem.
This is the exclusion of Russian banks from international Swift messaging.
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War in Ukraine: disconnect access to Swift, the “atomic weapon” against Russia
This cooperative under Belgian law, founded in the 1970s, enables 11,000 banks and institutions around the world, including approximately 300 Russian entities, to carry out their transactions in a perfectly secure and automatic manner.
Unplugging Russian banks from Swift would isolate them from the rest of the world.
Iran, a financial power less connected than Russia, has already borne the brunt of such punishment.
However, precisely because this sanction is a weapon of massive financial destruction, it would have secondary effects.
And, during the European Council…
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