Topic: U.S. Contemplating Isolating Russia from SWIFT Banking System - page 6. (Read 850 times)

Yeah, in theory, in practice....it has failed to do so two times already in the past half-century.
Russia might export more food than it imports but the is in the process of managing on doing so, because you see, when you exports 8 billion of what but you import 4 billion of tractors and agricultural machinery you have a serious problem longterm.
You can check their imports, everything that is needed to run a country at a basic level is imported, from computer parts to machinery, medicine even paper, they export tons of raw iron and aluminum and import the finished goods.

Basically, all the cars in Russia are made by foreigners, even Lada is owned now by Renault, look for example at their new civilian plane:


Russia was never cut from SWIFT, do your research before posting stuff like this.
And developing your own system means *** if the others won't want to use it.
It's like threatening AT&T that a new ISP based in Norilsk would take all their customers.


So what, Ukraine shouldn't be allowed to join whatever organization it wants because Russia is not agreeing on it? I love it when it comes to politics everyone forgets where they are, on bitcointalk and why they are here, and start about dictating to others what to do!
I just love this stuff, so a country next to Russia should not be allowed to arm itself or join an organization because .....reasons!

It seems like Putin is on the war path and this might be the only thing that could disrupt his plans short term. He has given an unacceptable list of demands which is, as usual, trying to impose Russia's will on independent countries that are free to decide their own future. Maybe if the Russian leadership were not constantly trying to bully everyone and the whole country was not mired in corruption of the political elite then it might have a more rounded economy. Every step he takes is for his own selfish gains and the average Russian loses out as it becomes more disconnected from the world. Let's hope the threat of financial isolation is enough to stop this warmonger of a leader, because the Russians and Ukrainians could easily be friends by choice without such aggression. Putin and Xi Jinping are truly leading the world into WW3, when will people ever learn. Bitcoin is really insignificant as a payment model for a country of that size and if that became a workaround it would be banned by EU/USA in response - thereby wiping out huge amounts of money stored in it, so be careful what you wish for.

I agree with you that Russia is not going to back down with their pressure towards Ukraine. It all comes down that Putin wants to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. If Ukraine is going to join than the conflict could escalate quickly. All the sanctions from the West don't seem to have much effect on Russia. The economy is important for Putin, but with rising energy prices Russia should profit from it.
Removing Russia from the SWIFT system is a bad idea in my opinion. We should try and find ways to settle for a compromise instead of escalating it more. Crypto currencies and decentralised ledgers could help Russia to get around all these problems. Isolating Russia more is not a good thing, it will just drive them closer to China.

Which system are you talking about? I genuinely ignore that one.
The real problem is that they might have an alternative, proprietary system alternative to SWIFT, but those systems are useful if and only if they are globally well connected between every banking system participant. If the alternative system is used only by Russian Banks, then it will be pretty useless!

You're right. President Putin has been declaring everywhere that he does NOT want war. But Ukraine stubbornly proves to everyone that Russia regularly attacks it. Russia does not know that it is at war with Ukraine. It seems that Ukraine, which has depended on Russia all its life, wanted to change its owner, but it is very funny to observe that other owners do not need it, but only to become a bargaining chip for unleashing war and new sanctions
The topic is shifting to the policy section

What you are saying is that Putin is lying in the media channels saying Russia doesn't want war.  Like this video?

If Ukraine will allow the US to set up a military base in Ukraine near the borders of Russia which is likely possible, this will lead to a real war. It's your country that will be ruined with such kind of action. It has to stop to avoid conflict otherwise another country will fail. The US will be there for war not building a nation just as how Biden said in Afghanistan.

As a resident of Ukraine, I will explain the situation. The start of this process began in 2014, when mass demonstrations began in Ukraine against the rotten power of President V. Yanukovych. Reason: in 2013-2014, the key goals of the country for the nearest period were agreed and spelled out, namely the European vector, integration into the economic and political processes of Europe and Western ideas and values. The key idea was to avoid any binding and imposed alliances with Russia. For some reason, Russia believes that all neighboring countries are OBLIGED to enter into an alliance with it, to become a supplier of cheap resources and a buyer of its low-quality products. Alliances with the Russian Federation have never been mutually beneficial. Well, many decades of occupation, and the mass destruction of Ukrainian citizens by Russia / USSR also influenced the choice of Ukrainians. But without the resources and potential of Ukraine, Russia is very uncomfortable. And the worst thing for Russia is an example of the fact that a country from its inner circle can show an example of how you can drive out a president a thief and a criminal, and start free changes to improve life! By the way - at the moment, despite the fact that both direct hostilities from Russia and terrorist actions are taking place against Ukraine, the level of the Ukrainian economy is growing, and in 2021, the minimum income level exceeded the same level in Russia, the richest country world
And the tales about Putin worrying about the security of Russia are a bluff for his sheep At the same time, he himself constantly, and all propaganda channels, tell how powerless NATO is, backward, lazy and cowardly, and a huge number of super-weapons have been invented in Russia, which will destroy in seconds any enemy, his missiles, tanks, ships, aircraft. You cannot imagine how much money Russia is investing in propaganda channels that carry these crazy tales to the masses!
Well, to the main topic - if Russia manages to capture Ukraine, although we will definitely resist this, Russia will not stop there. They openly declare that they want to create a new empire, and forcibly annex ALL the territories that were in the USSR - that is, ... return back to Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, punish Poland for its desire to live well, establish its own rules for Europe, monopolize the gas market in the EU. Do not be lazy - listen / read state official propaganda channels such as RT, ORT and the like, you will hear a lot of interesting things both about yourself and about the whole world, where "kind and decent Russia" is, and the rest of the world is angry with her
Therefore, sanctions, including disconnection from SWIFT, are a deterrent mechanism to prevent the spread of RASHISM (Russian fascism) around the world.

Since Ukraine is a break out from Russia and after being so long under their control and influence for a while, Russia must feel threatened by this further move to become more independent and free from their influence by seeking an inclusion and alliance with the strongest military alliance in the world - NATO. An alliance by Ukraine with NATO, will mean that an external military under strong influence of the United States has edged closer to Moscow, this is a big threat to Russia. if you have been following up on the news, you will hear that in the past days, Russia has significantly increased the number of troops on the border of Ukraine, am indication of maybe an invasion, the planned isolation of Russia from the SWIFT banking system may just be a tool to keep Russia in check until the tension and issues can be properly discussed. Putin now wants NATO not to expand its operations to Ukraine .

Cutting Swift for Russia was done a long time ago that's why they do have their own. Russia isn't afraid of that anymore. No sanctions can make them back out from US.

Apparently, you got the news from a media that simply is producing news in favor of Ukraine and US. You got it all wrong. There is no invasion there nor hacking, the US just needs a bogeyman to start a war for their failing Empire which thier money comes from wars that always fail. If it isn't the weak Biden that is their president today, things like this wouldn't be happening, US should replace that guy. Otherwise, they will continue to fail even when they lure Ukraine to join NATO that isn't allowed in the treaty they have signed.

The main reason not for tension, but for the hybrid war between Ukraine and Russia, is that Ukraine has chosen a course of joining the European Union and NATO. The Putin regime regarded this as a threat to its borders from the expanding NATO, and in 2014, using the fact that at that time there were many supporters of Russia and spies of its special services on the territory of Ukraine and in the higher structures of power, it occupied the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and part of western territories of Donbass. A significant role in Russia's success was played by the fact that in 2014 Ukraine did not actually have its own army, and the Ukrainians were psychologically not ready to shoot their Russian brothers.

By this year, the situation has changed a lot and Ukraine has become stronger. Seeing that they were failing to intimidate Ukraine, the Putin regime, which by that time had killed about 15,000 Ukrainians on their own territory, began to blackmail Europe and the whole world with a war, so that they themselves could influence the position of Ukraine with its foreign policy.
Now the situation has escalated to the limit and threatens to turn into open war. Therefore, the United States is considering the possibility of disconnecting Russia from the SWIFT global banking system, among other economic sanctions. Russia, foresaw this, and previously took certain steps for an alternative to this international system. However, such a shutdown will all the same give serious economic damage to the Russian economy.

This forms part of the pack of threats currently being considered by US and NATO due to the massive concentration of troops on the Ukraine border as you say. The geopolitical problem here is complex. Rusia is quite used to consider Ukraine as a possession and a critical one if you consider food supply. Europe is as usual trying to increase its influence on this country as a measure to contain Rusia and prefereably keep it away from sensible European borders.

The problem is that Rusia may just be too big for these type of sanctions - they only work well on small economies... or perhaps never work well.

Apparently Russia is a net exporter of agricultural food (from a few random Internet sources, not sure on how accurate they are).

At minimum a country's population needs: food, water, shelter, education and human relationships - Russia should be able to provide all of these for itself and manage quite well at it.

Also Russia is one of the largest producers of oil in the world, why wouldn't they use something backed by oil as a currency internationally (or something that can stably be made with oil that doesn't have as large a price fluctuation).

I think Russia, like China, went imperialist though recently which might be something that could cause issues for a lot of other countries - imperialism may be more efficient than capitalism and socialism under certain circumstances.

If you keep up with world news, you know there are some serious tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

Russia has shown several acts of aggression towards the people of Ukraine. Most notably the cyberattacks on Ukraine's power grid. Many think this was just a "practice run" aimed at perfecting these kinds of attacks for when they want to do some real damage.

In response to Russia's more recent actions, the United States proposed cutting Russia off from the SWIFT banking system should they mount any type of invasion on Ukraine. This would be detrimental to Russian businesses and consumers alike.

Assuming Russia has no intentions of invading Ukraine, there isn't really much to talk about. But what happens if they do?

Would it be political suicide? Would they develop their own banking/payment system? Would they look to an open-source monetary network?

I can't see Russia putting itself in a position to collapse its own economy. However, I also can't see Russia not harassing Ukraine.

Would our decentralized ledger be able to aid Russia in the event they are unable to use SWIFT?