Will West Commit Suicide and Expel Russia from SWIFT?

Feb. 26, 2022 (EIRNS)—Late Report: “We commit to ensuring that selected Russian banks are removed from the SWIFT messaging system,” the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Canada and the European Commission wrote in a joint statement released today. “This will ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally.” This is stopping short of removing Russia from SWIFT altogether, and we will have to see the impact. Removing Russia from SWIFT would be the equivalent of the West demanding of Russia: “Stop your military operations in Ukraine or else—we’ll kill ourselves!”

Earlier on Feb. 26, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted a tweet that Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi had said in a phone call that he now supports throwing Russia out of SWIFT.

Germany, Russia’s largest European economic partner, also gave way today, as Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Economy Minister Robert Habeck issued a statement: “We are urgently working on how to limit the collateral damage of decoupling from SWIFT in such a way that it affects the right people. What we need is a targeted and functional restriction of SWIFT.”

Should it be fully implemented, all trade with Russia would likely stop, including the 35-40% of Europe’s oil and gas which comes from Russia. Energy prices are already in a hyperinflation spiral due to the printing of trillions of dollars to bail out the Western banks, together with the insane Green New Deal’s elimination of most investments into fossil fuels. Russia is also a major supplier of food, which is also seeing huge inflation. Ending trade with Russia would be a death sentence for the world financial and economic system, while Russia and China, which are fully collaborating in real development and have the support of nearly 150 nations which have joined the Belt and Road Initiative, would likely be less impacted than Western Europe

Of course, if the West chooses war with nuclear powers, the world won’t need gas or food.