There was also immediate controversy about cutting Russia off the international payment system SWIFT, which has become a reality.
The aim of excluding large Russian banks from SWIFT is to isolate them from international financial markets and paralyse Russia's ability to repay its liabilities, which will lead to a further drop in the value of the Russian ruble. In addition, measures have also been issued against the Russian Central Bank. All these steps should lead to Russia's inability to continue financing the war with Ukraine and force Russian President Vladimir Putin to make peace.
On the other hand, Russia may react to this move by cutting off gas and oil supplies, which may have negative repercussions for other countries. The attack on Ukraine has already led to a significant rise in oil and gas prices in the first days of the war. However, their supply to Europe has continued without restriction until now. A war between two powers always reflects negatively on global markets. While the US dollar has climbed to its highest level in almost two years following the unfortunate events, the Russian ruble has fallen to a record low.
Both America and Europe have already announced a number of sanctions measures that are expected to have an impact on the Russian economy. These range from blocking airspace, to sanctions on a number of Russian oligarchs, to sanctions on a number of subjects
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China, on the other hand, has approached the situation by saying that it is ready to help Russia to reduce the impact of the sanctions and to be helpful in a situation where the country's relations with Western countries are deteriorating significantly because of the invasion of Ukraine.
The current situation has also triggered another avalanche of reactions. The British conglomerate BP has already announced that it will divest its stake in the Russian oil company Rosneft. On Friday, the (OECD) announced that it was ending the process of Russia joining its ranks. Interestingly, this process has been suspended since 2014.
However, the question remains as to why any country would be interested in exhausting itself with war from an economic or humanitarian point of view when the crisis and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are still not over. At the moment, only Russian President Vladimir Putin, who initiated the bombing of Ukraine, seems to know the answer. The Russian army has launched an air, naval and ground assault that is considered to be the largest attack by one state against another since the outbreak of the Second World War.
The war that broke out has already hit the price of European companies, but also indices, and the extent to which they will push their value will also depend on the development of the situation in the coming days.
If it continues to escalate, we can most likely expect investors to retreat to safe havens and the value of gold to surpass the psychological threshold of 2,000 ounces. In fact, investors will probably start to pull their invested money out of riskier assets and put it into gold or bonds. Another factor in the form of inflation is also helping the price rise, as the US central bank, the Fed, is gradually tightening monetary policy and investors certainly cannot rely on it to throw the global economy a lifeline in the form of further stimulus.
