If Russia continues to escalate the situation and move Russian troops closer to the Ukrainian border, the EU and the U.S. will respond with the toughest sanctions - freezing Russian oligarchs' accounts and disconnecting the Russian Federation from the SWIFT payment system.
This statement was made by Manfred Weber, Chairman of the leading party in the European Parliament, quoted by the German magazine Die Zeit.
"The EU and the U.S. should politically show what the Russian leadership is going for if they allow the situation in eastern Ukraine to deteriorate. In this case, the large-scale freezing of oligarchs' accounts or separation of Russia from the SWIFT payment system will become a reality," Weber said.
According to him, the further construction of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea "will no longer be sustainable".
As was earlier reported by Apostrophe, the U.S. and Great Britain firmly oppose Russia’s campaign to destabilize Ukraine, as per the joint statement made by British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab and U.S. State Secretary Anthony Blinken.