Item Number: 28104895 The disconnection of Russia from the international cross-border interbank system of financial transactions SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) remains to this day an unsolved problem for the Russian financial sector, said the governor of the Central Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiulina in an interview with website of the RBK publishing group. Nabyulina's first interview in nearly two years after the start of the war in Ukraine was published on the publishing group's website on Monday, December 25.
Her disconnection of Russia from the international cross-border interbank financial transaction system SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) remains to this day a unsolved problem for the Russian financial sectorsaid Governor of the Central Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiulina in an interview on the website of the RBK publishing group. The first after almost two years after the start of the war in Ukraine Nabyulina's interview, published on the publishing group's website on Monday, December 25.
According to the governor of the Central Bank of Russia, the Central Bank was ready to face some of the restrictions imposed by Western countries against Moscow after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She explains that this was done because the Central Bank had assessed the risks arising from the tightening of sanctions since 2014 , when Moscow faced international pressure due to the annexation of Crimea. Nevertheless, the new restrictions created problems for the Russian financial institution, which the Russian Federation has not been able to solve so far.
As the first of these problems, Nabiullina cites Russia's disconnection from the SWIFT international interbank system. Although this threat existed already in 2014 and Russia with this data began to build its own national payment system, the impossibility of cross-border transactions became the problem. “Indeed, chains are being created, they are constantly changing, but this is still a problem for many businesses,” Nabiulina tells RBK.
The freezing of foreign exchange reserves by the Central Bank of Russia is a sore point
According to Nabiullina's statements, the freezing of foreign exchange reserves of the Russian Central Bank abroad became “a very negative sign for everyone in the central banks, because this constitutes a violation of the basic principles of protection of foreign exchange reserves.” Russia has failed to mitigate the negative effects of these sanctions with the help of a floating exchange rate and restrictions on foreign exchange sales, adopted in spring 2022.
“A very painful issue became the blocking and freezing of the assets of the two persons who are millions of people who were not sanctioned but had their assets frozenNabiulina added.
Nabiulina in her interview points out that Russia should be prepared to face increased pressure through sanctions even if “we are tempted to think and say, that we went so well in 2022 and now, as they say, we are not afraid of anything.”
Among other things, the seizure of Russia's assets has been hotly discussed in Western countries lately. THE Germany is studying the possibility of confiscating 720 million dollars belonging to the Moscow Stock Exchange. Similar actions in relation to Russian assets are being discussed by the United States with allies, The New York Times newspaper had written. This is more than 300 billion dollars which is planned to be sent as military aid to Ukraine.
The European Union will ban imports of Russian diamonds from January
Earlier this month, European Union countries agreed to impose a 12th package of sanctions against Russia, which are intended to “further weaken Russia's ability to wage an aggressive war” in Ukraine.
Among the new restrictive measures is a gradual ban on the import of diamonds from Russia from January 1, as well as a requirement for European companies to present evidence that they are respecting the “price ceiling” of oil imported from Russia, which the countries imported of the West.
The EU has been Russia's main diamond sales market, according to data from Russian news agency Interfax. According to the general estimate, the income from Russian diamond exports to the EU reached 4 billion euros annually for Russia, while Belgium alone bought Russian diamonds worth 1.8 billion dollars annually.
Source: News Beast
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