Top U.S. and NATO officials have warned Russia may plan to invade Ukraine in the coming days, but U.S. lawmakers remain divided on …
Top U.S. and NATO officials have warned Russia may plan to invade Ukraine in the coming days, but U.S. lawmakers remain divided on whether the White House strategy to use severe sanctions as a deterrent is working. „I can’t imagine why President Biden will not step forward and take an action,“ Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told Fox News Saturday. „It appears that he is waiting for things to escalate for lives to be lost, property to be damaged.“ The senator, who sits on the Armed Services Committee, argued that „sanctions work.“ „One of the things he could have done was to move in and have Russia removed from the SWIFT international banking system. Hitting those banks would be the appropriate thing to do,“ she argued. Blackburn’s comments came one day after Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics, Daleep Singh, told reporters that removing Moscow from the SWIFT banking system was likely not going to be in the „initial“ sanction package if Russia invades Ukraine. „We have other severe measures we can take that our allies and partners are ready to take in lockstep with us, and that don’t have the same spillover effects,“ he said. „But we always will monitor these options, and we’ll revise our judgments as time goes on.“ Removing Russia from the international banking system has been floated for months as the Kremlin has stepped up its aggression toward Kyiv. SWIFT allows banks worldwide to securely and efficiently communicate with one another, and facilitates the transfer of „trillions of dollars in cross-border payments,“ according to Radio Free Europe – effectively cutting Russia off from top financial networks.
