Polish PM presents list of sanctions in letter to EU leaders

Russia, should be cut off from the SWIFT banking system, among other sanctions, Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime minister of Poland, wrote in a letter to EU leaders which was published on his Facebook account on Friday.

In his letter to EU leaders - the President of the European Council Charles Michel and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen – Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki presented a list of sanctions which, as he wrote, must be introduced "immediately" in order to "stop the barbaric attack on Ukraine."

The sanctions proposed by Morawiecki included: cutting off Russia from the SWIFT banking system; the closure of European airspace to Russian aircraft; the freezing and confiscation of the assets of Russian elites and oligarchs linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin; the removal of Russian companies from the MSCI index as well as cutting them off from capital markets, essentially putting an end to Nord Stream 2; moving away from purchases of hydrocarbons from Russia; and placing sanctions on both President Putin and Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov.

The exclusion of Russia from SWIFT, the dominant system for global financial transactions, may be adopted in the coming days, depending on Russia's actions, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday after a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers in Brussels.

According to the Polish prime minister, the imposition of sanctions on Russia are "the only hope for Ukraine, sanctions are needed here and now."