The governments of the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, and Italy, together with the European Commission, have decided to remove select Russian banks from the Swift messaging system. This is likely to cause disruption to ferrous trade financing, Kallanish notes.
The alliance, which now also includes Japan, signalling a coordinated response from the G7 nations, has also decided to impose restrictive measures on the Russian Central Bank, and take measures to keep wealthy Russians from becoming citizens of other countries through “golden passports”.
The governments are launching a transatlantic task force which will identify and freeze the assets of certain Russian individuals and companies and ensure successful implementation of the financial sanctions.
Among those targeted with EU sanctions on Monday are Metalloinvest owner Alisher Usmanov and Severstal chairman Alexey Mordashov. The latter responded to sanctions by saying: “For a very long time, I have been engaged in the development of economic, cultural and humanitarian cooperation with many European countries and I fail to understand how these sanctions against me will contribute to the settlement of the dreadful conflict in Ukraine”.
A senior Biden administration official said this week via teleconference. “We’ve now targeted all ten of Russia’s largest financial institutions, holding nearly 80% of the Russian banking sector’s total assets. We’ve cut off Russia’s largest bank from the US financial system, a very significant blow to its ability to function and process global trade”.
Laura Miller USA
