This includes the sale of “golden passports” that could be sold to Russian oligarchs, allowing to sidesteps sanctions already imposed upon them.
The United States and several key allies agreed Saturday evening they would expel certain select Russian banks from the high-security SWIFT banking system that connects major banking systems all over the world. This is a complete reversal by the U.S. and the European allies just two days after saying they wouldn’t go as far to recommend a SWIFT disconnect, which led the Ukrainian foreign ministry to say its Western allies would have the “blood” of innocent citizens on their collective hands if they didn’t act quickly on SWIFT. “I will not be diplomatic on this. Everyone who now doubts whether Russia should be banned from SWIFT has to understand that the blood of innocent Ukrainian men, women and children will be on their hands too,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted. “Ban Russia from SWIFT.” SWIFT is short for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, an electronic payment messaging system used by more than 11,000 banks across 200 countries, and it’s considered the gold standard of instant banking.
