The United States on Monday raised sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine and prohibited US entities from any operation with the Russian Central Bank, in addition to freezing all dollar assets of this entity.
The measure, announced before the opening of the markets in the United States and which takes effect immediately, prevents the Russian entity from accessing its dollar reserves in the world and prohibits any financial institution or US company from making transactions or operations with the Central Bank of Russia.
The ban also extends to operations with the Russian National Investment Fund, senior White House officials reported in a call with reporters.
In addition to freezing the assets of the Central Bank in dollars and preventing US entities from making transactions with Russian institutions, the measure affects the use of the dollar throughout the world for operations with the Central Bank of Russia.
“Our ban affects any dollar in the world, from any institution, which cannot be transacted with the Russian Central Bank”they insisted.
They assured that these new actions will be noticed today and will continue to have a negative impact on the ruble, which is in “freefall”in addition to further limiting Russia’s access to assets and hitting its economy by preventing financial activities.
The announced ban is a coordinated action with allies and immobilizes Russian assets around the world.
As they pointed out, there are US$ 630,000 million in Russian reserves that only matter if the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, can access them to sell them and strengthen the ruble, but after the measures approved today he will not be able to do so and “Russia will be exposed to disaster”.
They thus predicted immediate effects that will not only have repercussions in a greater devaluation of the currency but also in a greater “disconnection” of the country from the global financial system, in the escalation of inflation and in economic contraction. And all this, they stressed, has been caused by Putin himself with his aggression against Ukraine.
On the other hand, US officials confirmed that the list of entities that will be excluded from the SWIFT interbank payment system due to a regulatory issue is still being finalized.
The Society for World Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is based in Belgium. When the list of affected entities is closed, Europe has to approve a directive that passes to Belgium and that is endorsed by the SWIFT board of directors for its entry into force, they explained.
Source: Gestion
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