The violence of the Russian intervention pushed the West on Saturday to adopt a new set of tougher sanctions: they decided in particular to exclude many Russian banks from the Swift interbank platform, an essential cog in global finance, announced the German government, which chairs the G7 forum.
In a joint statement, the White House said the leaders of the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States were “committed to continuing to ‘impose costs on Russia that will further isolate it from the international financial system and our economies’. “We are committed to excluding a selection of Russian banks from the Swift messaging system”, measures which will be taken “in the coming days”, added the White House.