Kremlin Adviser Oreshkin: Russia Is No Longer Hostage to Western Financial System

July 17, 2022 (EIRNS)—Russia’s Presidential aide Maxim Oreshkin stated yesterday that Russia has no further need for the SWIFT international financial messaging system, from which it has been excluded because of the sanctions. “It is very simple regarding SWIFT: We will do so that there is no need for it. This is actually the key task at present, as I have already mentioned. We are focusing on maximizing the comfort for foreign economic activity,” Oreshkin said.

According to an account in TASS, Oreshkin added: “The whole world was the hostage of the Western financial system because everybody got accustomed to that; it was convenient for everyone. It is fundamentally clear why Russia and China are using dollars or euros. Merely out of habit, so it has evolved, it was convenient. Now it is the situation when, vice versa, yuan [turnovers] are soaring, ruble turnovers are soaring,” Oreshkin said. “We will design such mechanisms that will further simplify the process.”

Oreshkin also stated that he expected the Russian Central Bank to further lower interest rates at its July 22 meeting. Contrary to the desperate interest rate rises in the U.S. and other Western nations, the Bank of Russia reduced the key rate from 11% to 9.5% per annum at its June 10 meeting—which is still dangerously high for providing credit to the productive economy.