What are the consequences of the exclusion of Russian banks from Swift?

Carole Ferry, edited by Ugo Pascolo 5:56 p.m., February 28, 2022

It is presented as the economic nuclear weapon.

Western allies adopted a new round of financial sanctions against Moscow after the invasion of Ukraine, planning to exclude many Russian banks from the Swift interbank platform, a vital cog in global finance.

Swift is the system that allows banking information to be sent from point A to point B in complete security.

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The exception of the energy sector

For example, in the case of a purchase in Russia, a French bank uses Swift to communicate the bank details to the Russian bank with the famous IBAN code.

Banning Russian banks from Swift blocks all imports and exports with Russia, except in the energy sector.

An exception which is far from being a coincidence, since in the event of sanctions on gas, this would block purchases by the Germans, who have Russia as their first supplier.

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The alternative Swift

The fact remains that if the consequences are therefore very harsh for Russia, they are not totally unavoidable.

There will undoubtedly be more cryptocurrency exchanges, and above all Vladimir Putin has an alternative Swift with China.

Concretely, Russia can continue to have trade with other countries.

It can also ask its friendly countries to make payments on its behalf, and then reimburse them afterwards.

Parades are therefore possible, but that will still not facilitate the financing of the war for Vladimir Putin.