International contacts continue regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine - which is entering its fourth day - amid a European trend to completely isolate Russia diplomatically and financially, and calls for a rare emergency session of the Security Council to vote on discussing the crisis in the United Nations General Assembly.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has confirmed that her organization will cripple Russian President Vladimir Putin's ability to finance his war machine.
She explained that the assets of the Russian Central Bank will be frozen in order to prevent it from accessing its reserves, making it impossible for it to liquidate its balances.
She confirmed that a number of Russian banks will be separated from the global banking system SWIFT.
Invitations to complete isolation
In the context, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "emphasized the need for complete isolation of Russia diplomatically and financially", and welcomed the growing desire of Western countries to exclude Moscow from the banking system "Swift", according to Downing Street announced.
A spokesman for the British Prime Minister said in a statement that the two sides also noted - in a phone call - that "President (Russian Vladimir) Putin is facing more resistance from Ukraine than he expected."
For its part, France announced on Saturday evening that it would tighten economic and financial sanctions against Russia, especially by targeting Moscow's use of the Swift platform for international financial transactions.
The French presidency stated that during a meeting of the Defense Council, President Emmanuel Macron decided to “toughen economic and financial sanctions in coordination with the Europeans and Americans,” as well as to take “national measures to freeze the financial assets of Russian personalities,” in parallel with “new measures” to be taken “with partners.” Europeans regarding the SWIFT system.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday held a phone call with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, whose country hosts Russian soldiers participating in the attack on Ukraine, Minsk reported.
The Belarusian presidency said in a statement that Lukashenko and Macron "talked about the position and role of Belarus in the conflict" in Ukraine.
On the other hand, the French presidency said that Macron asked his Belarusian counterpart to remove Russian forces from his country's soil.
American warnings
Hours earlier, US President Joe Biden said that there were significant negative consequences for Russia as a result of President Vladimir Putin's move to invade Ukraine, while the Western camp benefited from it.
He added that there is a real chance that Putin will pay a heavy price for this invasion in the long run, and will ultimately fail.
Biden indicated that the historical turning point that we are going through now will lead to major changes in the next decade, which does not happen often.
Security Council
In light of the developments on the ground in Ukraine, diplomats said that the United Nations Security Council is scheduled to vote - on Sunday - to call for a rare emergency extraordinary session of the United Nations General Assembly, which includes 193 members, to discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to be held on Monday. .
The vote of the 15-member council is procedural, so none of the council's five permanent members - Russia, China, France, Britain and the US - can veto it.
Diplomats said the move would need nine votes to pass, and that it was likely to happen.
The request for the hearing on Ukraine comes after Russia vetoed on Friday a draft Security Council resolution that would have condemned the invasion of Moscow.
China, India and the UAE abstained, while the remaining 11 members voted in favor of the resolution.
Diplomats said that the General Assembly is expected to vote on a similar resolution, after issuing statements for days on countries in the emergency special session.
Note that the decisions of the General Assembly are not binding, but they have political weight.
The United States and its allies are seeking as much support as possible to show that Russia is isolated internationally.
Humanitarian aid
A UN spokesman said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke with the Ukrainian president on Saturday to inform him of the world body's intention to "strengthen humanitarian assistance to the people of Ukraine".
Guterres "informed the (Ukrainian) president that the United Nations will launch on Tuesday an appeal for funding for our humanitarian operations in Ukraine," the spokesman added in a statement.
On Friday, UN Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said more than $1 billion is needed for relief operations in Ukraine over the next three months, with hundreds of thousands of people displaced after Russia invaded its neighbor.
Negotiation
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian President announced that his Turkish counterparts, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Azerbaijani Ilham Aliyev, said that they would help start negotiations between Kiev and Moscow.
This came in a video message that Zelensky posted on his Twitter account on Saturday, dealing with developments related to the Russian attack on Ukraine.
He said that he had held talks with the leaders of Switzerland, Greece, the Netherlands, Italy and India, and that his country had attracted the attention of the civilized world, as he put it.
He pointed out that his country obtained the result regarding the penalty for dismissing Russia from the SWIFT system for banking transactions, which is the main tool in the global financial system.
Commenting on Russia's announcement that Ukraine has given up the idea of negotiating, Mikhailo Podolak, an adviser to the Ukrainian President's office, told Reuters that his country did not refuse to negotiate, but Russia set conditions that could not be accepted.
The Ukrainian advisor said that Kiev had prepared its negotiating position, while Moscow had set unenforceable negotiating conditions from the beginning, stressing that Russia had never stopped the movements of its forces in Ukraine.