![]() ![]() In late April 2023, the White House website did not contain any announcements about a full or partial reversal of the war-related sanctions on Russian banks. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union disconnected major state-controlled Russian banks from SWIFT, and after that, the list of sanctioned financial institutions continued to expand. Before the pandemic, 90 percent of international money transfers were processed through this system. SWIFT operates as a private company headquartered in Belgium. It is an international messaging system allowing banks to process cross-border payments. SWIFT stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications. However, the claim is false: As of this writing, both European and American sanctions against Russian financial institutions remain in place. Many of these materials speculated that the purported decision was made specifically by the United States. The narrative was also promoted by the state-controlled Russian media such as RIA Novosti. The claim circulated in multiple languages (for example, here and here) and across platforms, appearing on YouTube as well. (Source: Twitter screenshot taken on Mon Apr 24 15:18:20 2023 UTC) This is what the post looked like on Twitter at the time of writing: ![]() It opened: NEWS | Russia has been reconnected back to SWIFT after the country was removed over a year ago The claim appeared in a tweet (archived here) published on April 22, 2023. Did sanctioned Russian banks regain their access to the international system of cross-border money transfers in April 2023? No, that's not true: No such decision was made by the European Union or the United States, as of this writing. ![]()
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