“They provide extremely secure communications, developed over five decades, dovetailing with the many and varied operations of commercial banks in international transactions. Swift systems would also be a prime target in any cyberwarfare, though thankfully they are well defended”
“The reality, however, is that limiting access to Swift is less practically effective than most media coverage supposes. It is an important symbol of global repudiation of Russia’s exercise of military force, but not much more.”
“It is other measures, such as blocking the central bank of the Russian Federation from transacting internationally, which is undermining confidence in the rouble.”
More about SWIFT here…and how transfers can be executed by other means.
SWIFT on its own is an inconvenience (as an earlier FT article pointed out) but on its own is not enough to be painful especially as Russia has been preparing for this since 2014 in various ways.
It’s the sanctions eg on Gazprom and it’s banking facilities that hurt.
Effective sanctions are likely to exert pain on both sides and may have to be sustained for a long time….depends whether this brings about a rapid collapse of Putin’s regime - and who replaces him, if so.
Adopt the brace position.
This makes this 30 day grace period to VTB Bank by the British Government even more puzzling.
A Few Members of Russia's Parliament Speak Out Against War - The New York Times
They say they were told that troops were going in as peacekeepers in Luhansk and Donetsk …not that it would be a full scale invasion. That’s what they voted on.
Three members of Russia’s rubber-stamp Parliament have criticized their country’s war in Ukraine, a rare episode of dissent from within the Russian establishment.
“All three members belong to Russia’s Communist Party, which is nominally part of the opposition to the governing United Russia party but typically remains loyal to President Vladimir V. Putin on key issues.”
The Russian soldiers “believed they were the good guys, coming to liberate oppressed Ukrainians from their Nazi overlords. They believed the Kremlin, which said they'd be welcomed, thanked.
Instead, they are being berated as "оккупанты" - occupiers…by people who speak Russian…
“The past has invaded the present. Russia’s military aggression has burst over Ukraine like a storm cloud gathered from a different, darker time. It is raining terror and destruction on a country that has seen tank columns like the one Vladimir Putin has ordered to Kyiv before…”
“.. but not in the last seven decades.
The Kremlin claims to be landing surgical strikes. The reality for civilians on the ground is butchery. Until this happened, the western imagination struggled to process the idea that Putin would go through with it.”
“His cynical disregard for human life was never doubted, but his callousness was thought to include rational self-interest.”
Beijing said it was “extremely concerned about the harm to civilians” in comments that came after a phone call between Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.
“Ukraine is willing to strengthen communications with China and looks forward to China playing a role in realising a ceasefire,” the Chinese statement said on Tuesday
“It added that it respected “the territorial integrity of all countries”, without indicating whether Beijing accepted Russia’s claim to the Crimean peninsula or shared its recognition of separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.”