@Jabra:
There are multiple reasons why they didn't tackle Swift yet. Some of them make sense, others feel like convenient excuses.
1. It's the sharpest sword available, the last step on the escalation ladder outside of military intervention (which there will be none, I think that much is certain). I think this tit for tat approach isn't working at all if the aggressor is a 70 year old nutjob who just wants to leave his mark in the history books, but this is how the EU handled pretty much anything in the recent past.
Trade embargo, visa cancellation of russian citizen's and seizing russian foreign capital (Russia is threatening to seize all foreign capital to retaliate international restrictions.
2. It would indiscriminately hit the civil population in numerous ways, which may or may not be a good idea considering that this fuels the Russian propaganda (the West is here to get each and everyone of you). Apparently there is a slight hope that the protests in Russia have some effect, especially if they grow as the war goes on.
Russia is already full swing on 24/7 anti-west propaganda, they are already blaming West of being aggressors in Ukraine and that ukraine government is nothing but nazi puppet of 'west'
3. Our foreign minister argued that this would also cut off payments for civil right groups and such, which I guess is true considering the effect it had on Iran, but then again she followed up with:
What civil right groups? Putin has been busy in last 10 years of systematically dismantling any civil or aid group in Russia in pretext of 'anti-patriotism'
4. We wouldn't be able to pay for the Russian gas. I had a lot of opportunities to feel ashamed in the last couple days, but I think I peaked here. I don't want to comment this any further.
Russia will most likely cut off gas of europe in few days in retaliation, we fund russian war crimes with importing energy from russia anyway, dismantling europes own energy production for cheap russian gas has been incredibly short sighted in hindsight.
5. Targeting the banking system is apparently more effective at hitting the oligarchs and the inner circle of Putin, but this already didn't work when he annexed Crimea so why should it now?
There is chance that even oligarch's have less of a say in russian regime. Putin and his regime might be too far to be reasoned by simple human greed.
6. They fear that cutting Russia off from Swift will strengthen China's homegrown payment system (Cips). I guess this is a valid concern, but then again this ship has sailed with the Iran sanctions a couple years ago. Everyone knows the West will use such cross border payment systems as leverage, not sure how this would be an eye-opener for any government.
Even Russia has been limiting use of Swift for last years in prediction of these events, make no mistake that cutting Russia from SWIFT is painful blow it won't be as crippling as many theorize, Russia just might throw ultimate victim card and do something drastic such as closing its airspace from air travel and seizing all western assets in Russia.