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Hitting Putin Where It Hurts
Why haven’t we cut Russia off from SWIFT?
SWIFT stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. It is used by banks and other institutions to process payments as part of a global network. It revolutionized international trade and finance upon inception. It’s become so ubiquitous that cutting off a nation’s SWIFT access would seriously damage that nation’s economy.
Query — why hasn’t the Biden administration used this method to deter Vladimir Putin from his opportunistic invasion of Ukraine?
If they had swiftly moved to kick Russia out of the SWIFT network, a very real threat to the Russian economy would have been implemented. It could lead to large scale unemployment and shortages of food, electronics, medicine, and many other items that are essential.
According to former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, losing SWIFT access would shrink the Russian GDP by 5%. It would also make it difficult for Russia to get payment for the natural gas it sells to the rest of Europe. Of course, this would also have repercussions for much of Europe, since many of these countries rely on Russian energy imports to stay warm in winter.
Of course, if the Biden administration had not cut American energy production by, among other things, cancelling the Keystone…
