Western nations on Saturday agreed to unleash new sanctions to further isolate Russia’s economy and financial system after initial penalties failed to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to withdraw his forces from Ukraine.
Japan would join the US and other Western countries in blocking certain Russian banks from the SWIFT international payment system, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said yesterday.
Tokyo would place sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin and extend US$100 million in emergency humanitarian aid to Ukraine, Kishida told reporters.
Photo: AP
A decision to penalize Russia’s central bank and exclude some Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system, used for trillions of dollars of transactions around the world, was announced on Saturday in a joint statement by the US, the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and Canada.
The agreement includes measures to “prevent the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves in ways that undermine the impact of our sanctions.”
“Russia’s war represents an assault on fundamental international rules and norms that have prevailed since the Second World War, which we are committed to defending,” the Western governments said.
They said they were “prepared to take further measures to hold Russia to account for its attack on Ukraine.”
The move is aimed at Russian banks that have already been sanctioned by the international community, but can be expanded to other Russian financial institutions if necessary, officials said.
One official said the White House is looking at exemptions for transactions involving the energy sector, which the US administration has sought to exclude to prevent oil prices from surging.
Separately, the UN Security Council was yesterday due to vote to call for a rare emergency special session of the 193-member UN General Assembly on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which would be held today, diplomats said.
The vote by the 15-member council is procedural so none of the five permanent council members — Russia, China, France, the UK and the US — can wield their vetoes.
The move needed nine votes in favor and was likely to pass, diplomats said.
Only 10 such emergency special sessions of the General Assembly have been convened since 1950.
The request for a session on Ukraine comes after Russia on Friday vetoed a draft Security Council resolution that would have deplored Moscow’s invasion. China, India and the United Arab Emirates abstained, while the remaining 11 members voted in favor.
The General Assembly is expected to vote on a similar resolution following several days of statements by countries in the emergency special session, diplomats said.
General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, but carry political weight.
The decision to cut Russian banks off from SWIFT marks a rapid escalation for the US and its allies, who had spent weeks signaling that such a move was a “nuclear option,” unlikely to win broad support.
However, the ferocity of Russia’s assault has rallied public support in the West to do more to prevent Russia from using the plumbing of the modern financial system, and isolate it as a pariah similar to Iran, Venezuela and North Korea.
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