Russia will quickly find an alternative to the international system for transferring interbank payments SWIFT, if it shows its unreliability. This was announced on Thursday, April 29, by the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov.
“If SWIFT as a service shows its unreliability, we live in such a developed world that analogs, or by-pass, substitutes for this system will be found very quickly,” he said on the air of Channel One.
The Kremlin spokesman stressed that it is time for everyone, including the United States, to understand that Russia is a self-sufficient and strong country.
“It is impossible to limit Russia in anything. Yes, you can try to restrain it, you can press on the throats of your allies and force them not to buy weapons, but this will not force Russia to change its policy, ”concluded Peskov.
On April 29, Pavel Sigal, First Vice-President of Opora Rossii, said that banks in the Russian Federation could easily switch to the Russian analogue of the instrument – the Financial Messaging System (SPFS). At the same time, he noted that the financial sector of Russia will suffer first of all if the country is disconnected from SWIFT.
In turn, the first deputy head of the international committee of the Federation Council Vladimir Dzhabarov said on April 29 that the European Union would have to pay for oil in cash in suitcases if Russia was disconnected from SWIFT.
On April 28, the European Parliament published a draft resolution proposing to disconnect Russia from the international SWIFT system and abandon oil and gas “if the aggression in Ukraine continues.”
On April 22, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba called on the EU to consider the possibility of “disconnecting Russia” from SWIFT. In his opinion, such a measure could be included in a new package of anti-Russian sanctions in the event of an escalation of the situation in southeastern Ukraine.
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) is an international interbank system for data transmission and payments, to which more than 11 thousand of the largest organizations are connected in almost all countries of the world.