Western countries agreed to impose severe sanction on Russia: cut off Russian banks from "Swift"

After three days of fighting, Western countries have agreed to impose the most severe sanction on Russia: cut off (not all) Russian banks from the Swift system, the World Interbank Financial Communications Association. This means that funds will not be able to flow out of and into the Russian financial system. The decision was supported by the European Union, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and the United States, which initially opposed it. This is a very extreme step. The decision was made to take "drastic measures" against Russia. "We will make sure that these banks are disconnected and damage their ability to operate at a global level," said Ursula von der Lane, president of the European Commission.
What does the Russian disconnection from the system mean? "Although Russia has developed an independent interbank transfer system (MIR), it has not yet been able to capture significant market share," explains Dr. Gil Befman, chief economist at Bank Leumi. Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Turkey and Thailand.
"Therefore, the impact of sanctions on specific banks may be large, prohibiting US banks from operating with / for Russian banks, and even extending the restrictions to any financial activity between the US private sector and any Russian entity. Such measures may impair capacity. "Russian banks will convert rubles to dollars and also hurt its foreign trade. It is expected to affect Russian areas of activity that are particularly dependent on Western goods and services, such as software, machinery and equipment."

The European Union and the President of the United States have decided to impose personal sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin. This is at a time when there are increasing reports of explosions in Kiev and the intention of the Russian army to occupy the capital of Ukraine. The OECD has also decided to officially end the process of Russia's accession to the organization.

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine and said he has decided to launch a military operation in the Donbas region and calls on the Ukrainian army to lay down its arms. The confrontation between Russian and Ukrainian forces is inevitable and it is only a matter of time, he said. According to him, NATO expansion and its use in Ukraine is not acceptable. However, he clarified that Russia does not intend to annex Ukraine.
The Russian president stressed that the operation in eastern Ukraine was intended to protect civilians. Circumstances call for action on the part of Russia and that it can not tolerate threats coming from the direction of Ukraine. Our correspondent Eran Sikoral reports that explosions were heard in the capital Kiev.and Harkov.

ABC reports that the russian commanders step into assult positions. Several international flights that flew over Ukraine and turned around and left the region.
The Security Council convened for an emergency meeting and UN Secretary-General Guterres called on President Putin to refrain from invading Ukraine. Give a chance for peace, said the UN secretary.
Ukrainian President Zalansky said last night that Russia had approved an attack on his country. In a statement to the Russian people he said he initiated a conversation with President Putin but the Russian president did not respond to his request. According to Zlansky, silence should be in the Donbass region and not in the telephone line.

US President Joe Biden condemns Russia for declaring war. A brief and forceful statement said Putin was solely responsible for the destruction, destruction and killing of innocent civilians. During the day he will announce the United States' response to the start of the war in Ukraine. Biden further said that the American president will hold consultations with the leaders of the G-seven countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a special speech to the nation on Monday evening, in which he announced that Russia recognizes the independence of the separatist provinces in eastern Ukraine - a recognition that Western estimates increase the chances of invasion. Putin's recognition actually paves the way for Russia's overt military assistance to separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Putin this evening signed an order recognizing the independence of the rebels, calling on the Ukrainian army to immediately stop firing in eastern Ukraine - claiming that the region's 4 million people are facing "genocide". He accused Kiev of killing civilians in the separatist regions, and threatened that if it did not "immediately" cease its military activities in eastern Ukraine it would "bear full responsibility for the possible continued bloodshed". Ukraine has in recent days denied the Kremlin's and rebels' statements about hostile activities attributed to it, claiming that these are false provocations designed to give Putin an excuse to invade.
In an extraordinary speech, Putin attacked the Ukrainian regime and what has been happening in the country since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. He said that Ukraine had always been a part of Russian history, and that after the collapse of the Soviet Union it had failed to produce a "true tradition of state". He said Ukrainian authorities were "infected" with nationalism and corruption, and over the years Ukraine had become an "American colony with puppet rule."
In his speech tonight, the President of Russia referred to the historical connection between the countries, and said that Ukraine was founded by Communist Russia. According to Putin, the founder of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, deprived Russia of the division of territories - and the lands in eastern Ukraine actually belong to Russia. Referring to the tensions surrounding the NATO deployment in Eastern Europe, and the Russian fear that Ukraine would join the military alliance, Putin said: "If Ukraine joins NATO it will be considered a direct threat to Russia's security."
Following Putin's announcement tonight, the White House announced that US sanctions are being formulated on the separatist districts. On the night between Sunday and Monday, Putin and US President Joe Biden agreed to meet for a summit on tensions over Ukraine, mediated by French President Emmanuel Macron, who initiated the move. "To hold such a meeting, and that it can only take place if Russia does not invade Ukraine by then.
About an hour before the speech, the Kremlin announced that Putin had decided to recognize the independence of the "People's Republics" in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Kiev and the West fear that Russia's recognition of the independence of the two separatist provinces will make it easier for it to invade Ukraine: now Moscow can send troops to Donetsk and Luhansk - claiming they arrived to protect the local population. Following the dramatic development, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zalansky convened the country's National Security Council, and spoke with US President Joe Biden.
The Kremlin has repeatedly denied that Russia, which has more than 150,000 troops on the border with Ukraine, is planning an invasion of a neighboring country. The United States and other countries have claimed that Putin has already made a decision to invade.
The Russian president said this afternoon, after a meeting of his Security Council, that in the coming hours he would make a decision on the independence of Luhansk and Donetsk. At a meeting of the Russian Security Council, senior officials reported escalation in both districts, and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in eastern Ukraine.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, said in an afternoon meeting that it was "clear" that Ukraine did not need separatist districts in the Donbas region and that most Russians would support independence.
Alexander Bortnikov, head of the Russian security service, said at the meeting that the security situation in the Donbas region was deteriorating and that close to 700,000 people had been evacuated to Russia. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu accused Ukraine of numerous shelling in the separatist areas (claims that Kiev denies) and added that residents were left without water or gas.
The meetings of the Russian Security Council are usually not documented. This time, in the shadow of tensions on the Ukrainian border, state television broadcast the meeting, saying it was "unprecedented documentation." The rebels in eastern Ukraine, it will be recalled, occupied the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of the Donbas region in the midst of the war that began between them and the government in Kiev in 2014, following the revolution in which the pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted. Millions of citizens, mostly Russian-speaking, live in Luhansk and Donetsk.
The rebels receive political and military support from Moscow. Because Russia has granted Russian citizenship to hundreds of thousands of people in the Donbas region, the West fears that as it has done in the past in Georgia, it will take advantage of this to claim it must invade Ukraine and help the rebels to protect its citizens. Over the weekend Donetsk and Luhansk began evacuating women and children to the Rostov region of Russia, announcing a general recruitment of men.
At noon, ahead of the Kremlin announcement and Putin's statement, pro-Russian rebel leaders in Donetsk and Luhansk called on Russian presidents to recognize their provincial independence. Last week, the Russian parliament issued a similar call to Putin, who then signaled that he would refrain from doing so for the time being, and give an opportunity to make peace in eastern Ukraine in accordance with the 2015 Minsk agreements, in which rebel ropes were granted autonomous status but not recognized. Today, after days of heavy exchanges of fire and claims that Putin is looking for an excuse to invade Ukraine, he sounds different. Russia's recognition of the independence of the two rebel districts in eastern Ukraine is effectively leading to a final collapse of the Minsk agreements.