The West has imposed unprecedented economic sanctions on Russia. Credit: Rakoon, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0/WikipediaThe West has launched an unprecedented economic war against Russia over the weekend over its invasion of Ukraine.
The ruble plunged to a record low of less than 1 U.S. cent in value Monday after Russia was cut off from the global bank payments system.
The Russian currency dropped nearly 26% to 105.27 per dollar, down from about 84 per dollar late Friday.
Over the weekend the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, Britain, Canada, and the US imposed four additional measures they had been holding off on:
- they removed selected Russian banks from SWIFT, the global financial messaging system that enables money to travel around the world
- they agreed to prevent Russia’s Central Bank from deploying its international reserves in ways that undermined the sanctions, crippling its ability to use foreign currency to support the ruble
- they committed to act against Russian oligarchs, specifically by limiting the sale of so-called golden passports to wealthy Russians
- they committed to freeze the foreign assets of sanctioned individuals up to and including President Putin, as well as those of their families and “enablers”.
- The personal sanctions apply to the finances of Putin, his Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov, the rest of his Security Council, and 11 other named officials. The US says it is “exceedingly rare” to designate a head of state. Putin joins a small group that included North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
