Why Russia’s Ukraine course could hit its own economy hard

Berlin It’s not a particularly eye-catching building in La Hulpe, Belgium, a small town on the southern outskirts of Brussels. A low building with two sand-colored wings to the right and left, divided by a glass entrance portal.

Nobody would suspect that the world’s most important financial network would have its headquarters here: the headquarters of the “Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication”, or “Swift” for short. In the past few months, Swift has achieved global prominence, namely as the greatest possible sanctioning instrument, apart from military means. In the Ukraine crisis, Swift could develop the greatest potential threat to Russia because a decoupling from Swift practically paralyzes a country’s foreign payment transactions.

Especially for Russia, one of the largest energy exporters in the world, Swift is a neuralgic point – not because it is crucial for direct money transactions, but because it enables the secure transmission of messages between banks in international business.