The West is approaching an agreement to exclude Russia from the SWIFT system, says Lithuania | Photo credit: Shutterstock
VILNIUS, Feb 26 (Reuters) – Talks among Western countries are progressing over Russia’s exclusion from the SWIFT interbank network, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said on Saturday.
“Our aim is for the decision to be taken as soon as possible. I cannot give a specific date. From what I hear, it seems that there is no longer any strong opposition,” said Ingrida Simonyte at a press conference in Vilnius.
The President of the Italian Council, Mario Draghi, supports this measure, declared the Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski and the leader of the Italian Democratic Party, Enrico Letta, while Italy was among the countries reluctant to such an initiative.
The decision to cut Russia off from the SWIFT network is expected to come in the coming days, a governor of a euro zone central bank told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Canada, the United States, Britain and the European Union said on Friday they could take steps to bar Russia from the SWIFT international system of interbank payments as part of a new round of sanctions to punish Moscow from the invasion launched in Ukraine. (Andrius Sytas report, with Pavel Polityuk, French version Laetitia Volga)