With the news that the West has unleashed more penalties against Russia by severing some of Russia's banks from a financial system called Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), which links thousands of banks operating in about 200 countries and territories around the world, warnings from Russia in April 2021, become much more ominous.
On April 22, 2021, The Moscow Times was used as a shot across the bow to warn the West what would happen if they attempted to "disconnect" Russia from SWIFT, with the sub-header of the Moscow Times article dubbing it a potential "financial Armageddon."
In a meeting with EU foreign ministers, Ukraine’s top diplomat Dmytro Kuleba said he had called for a tough new package of sanctions, including the expulsion of Russian banks from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) network, which currently links more than 11,000 banks operating in at least 200 countries and territories around the world.
The proposal — long popular among those who favor slapping hard-hitting sanctions on Russia — has picked up new supporters since last year’s poisoning of Alexei Navalny. Talk of a possible embargo reached fever pitch in Moscow in the days leading up to U.S. President Joe Biden’s announcement of a new round of sanctions against Russia mid-April, with top Russian officials and banking figures talking up the dangers of being disconnected.
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The Foreign Ministry said Russia needed to create its own blockchain-based alternative. The head of Russia’s banking association warned SWIFT against disconnecting Russian lenders, saying it would be an act of “self-castration,” while the Director General of the Kremlin-aligned Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) compared the potential move to detonating a financial “nuclear bomb.”
That was then... this is now where there is a war happening now between Ukraine and Russia and the exact sanctions that were discussed in 2021, causing Russian diplomats to warn of the consequences of such a move, are being implemented by the West against Russia.
While we see from BBC News that the lasting effects against Russia would likely be mitigated by rerouting their payments via countries that have not imposed sanctions, including China which has its own payments system, the retaliation by Russia against the West and other countries involved in this decision, could be disastrous, in more ways than one.
While one byproduct of any Russia retaliation would be further spiking of energy costs globally, the likelihood of a cyber attack by Russia has cyber experts concerned, according to reports.
Cyber experts warned of increased risk of cyberattacks from Russia, following the latest sanctions announced over Ukraine — which dropped major Russian banks from the SWIFT financial system.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened retaliation against the west for what he perceives as interference in the country’s unprovoked assault on its neighbor Ukraine. And as is well known, both the Russian government itself and affiliated cybercriminal gangs possess significant cyberattack capabilities — and Russia has a history of using them in geopolitical contexts.
Before the military attacks on Ukraine began, there were multiple DDoS (Denial-of-service) attacks against them to which the U.S. and UK blamed Russia for, and a statement from Eric Byres, CTO of cyber firm aDolus Technology, indicates how seriously we should be taking Russia's cyber capabilities.
Byres stated in an email “I’m willing to bet that the Russians haven’t used even a fraction of the bullets in their cyber arsenal."
“If Russia encourages or even incents cybercriminal targeting against Western companies, the threat level increases dramatically,” Holland said. “There is also a risk of a potential escalatory spiral if the U.S. retaliates against these attacks.”
Ultimately, “as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) says, we need ‘Shields Up‘ right now — because the cyber threat level for the financial and energy sectors, in particular, is perhaps the highest it has been in years,” he said.
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