UK Says It Will Work 'All Day' To Persuade Europe To Cut Russia Off From Swift (theguardian.com) 166
The UK has said it will work "all day" to persuade fellow European states to cut Russia off from the international Swift payment system. From a report: The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, ended the pretence that Britain was not at odds with its fellow European leaders over the issue. He said there was still time for Russia to be excluded, and the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said: "The UK is working with allies to exclude Russia from the Swift financial system." Wallace added: "We will work all the magic, do everything we can in diplomacy." Truss is to undertake a round of shuttle diplomacy to try to rally support for the British position after the EU refused to adopt what has been billed as the "nuclear option" of sanctions. The story adds: Swift is incorporated under Belgian law and, although supervised by a complex web of central banks, it was forced in 2012 to comply with an EU regulation, as confirmed by its home country government, that had cut Iran off from the banking system.
The point is to delay it (Score:2)
Russian money spends as good as anybody else's and nobody wants to risk pissing off Russian investors. So we're not going to seize anybody's property and we're going to make sure they can safely protect it while pretending
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There is an old saying, "the Capitalist will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."
It applies here. The naked greed for money will be the world's undoing.
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There is an old saying, "the Capitalist will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."
Which no-one involved in Marxism/Communism actually ever said [quoteinvestigator.com], but it makes a good sound bite anyway.
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nobody wants to risk pissing off Russian investors
There's a lot of Western money invested in Russia. They have to get paid as well.
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Like cryptocurrencies, where it's sure to be safe... Oh, wait... :-)
Maybe they could buy properties? I hear there's a bridge in Ukraine... Oh, wait...
In a related thought, someone needs to sink/ground Putin's £73.2M mega yacht -- you know, for funzies.
Putin's yacht is only $73.2m? (Score:2)
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The article listed the amount in Pounds, not Dollars. According to Google, £73.2M is about $98M.
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blah blah America sucks blah - typical comment of yours.
You know America has been mostly in favor of cutting off SWIFT access. Its Germany and some of the other EU NATO states that have been pushing back with bullshit arguments like we need to hold something back to hit them with later... When really its about their being able to but dollar denominated Russian gas and oil!
Our so called allies that have been powering their economies on Russian fuel and enriching Putin's Russia all this time have left Ukraine
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Did you read my comment? (Score:2)
The ruling class take care of each other no matter what. It's a big club, and you ain't in it.
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ignoring the fact that Biden is blocking a cut to Swift right now
Incorrect. The current administration was outvoted regarding denying the Russians access to the SWIFTnet.
Germany is currently spearheading the blocking of that, and no party can unilaterally do it.
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Nah, they'll just switch to IBAN. SWIFT's outdated anyway.
Everything in that statement is completely wrong. This article explains quite well what SWIFT is https://edition.cnn.com/2022/0... [cnn.com] The alternatives are the Russian SPFS and the Chinese CIPS (how viable they are the article doesn't really tell and I haven't looked in to it).
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Technologically speaking SWIFT is pretty outdated. They're still using XML.
The fact that there are at least 2 potential alternatives is probably why they haven't blocked Russia from SWIFT yet. Enough countries trade with Russia or depend on Russian exports that one of them would quickly grow to become a serious competitor. They might still do it to send a message but at this point the only thing that will actually stop Russia is military intervention.
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Technologically speaking SWIFT is pretty outdated. They're still using XML.
What? Coming from someone who knows nothing about the technical details of SWIFT, what does XML have to do with it? Would you feel better if they were using JSON or something?
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Re: The point is to delay it (Score:2)
The point is they'll have plenty of incentive to - and thus will - quickly become viable if Russians are cut off from SWIFT.
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oligarchs can shift their money around
Since the invasion, Russia's currency (Ruble) has apparently crashed to its lowest point against the dollar *ever* and their stock market crashed, so they could just park their money in Rubles and/or Russian stocks that have crashed, wait for the inevitable rebound and make a fortune. From Russian Market Rout Wipes $200 Billion From Stocks; Bonds Dive [bloomberg.com]:
Russian assets nosedived as military attacks across Ukraine prompted emergency central bank action and additional sanctions from the U.S., wiping out almost $200 billion in stock-market value and roughly a third of the sovereign debt’s value.
The ruble sank to a record low, the cost of insuring Russian debt against default soared to the highest since 2009, and stocks ended the main trading session down 33% -- their biggest-ever retreat. The Bank of Russia said it will intervene in the foreign exchange market for the first time in years and take measures to tame volatility.
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Sad as it is, this is pretty much what is going on. Although I think they all have already shifted their money and did it last week. It is not like they did not have ample warning. So cutting them out from SWIFT now is completely bogus and will only hit small folk that had nothing to do with this mess. As usual.
The sad thing is that Europe and its Eastern part could really have grown slowly together over time. Putin now has made that impossible for a long, long time and a lot of people are going to suffer a
We should block Russian porn (Score:2)
The biggest export ever!
That will show them.
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Pornhub is currently blocked to Russian IP's.
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I think you're punishing the wrong people there.
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The biggest export ever!
That will show them.
Naa, lets not get hasty. Just stop feeling bad about pirating it.
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When was I supposed to have felt bad about that?
Who Gives a Shit (Score:2, Insightful)
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Russia invaded Ukraine because the US and EU disarmed it. If they still had Nukes this would not be happening either.
The take away here is sadly is if are not a nuclear power you are not a power and your territorial integrity is not certain!
Its going to make the anti-proliferation argument damn near impossible to sell the public's of places like Iran and DPRK now.
Peace is bought with the point of the spear, always has been, always will be.
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The US and UK DID NOT stand idly by, we actively flamed the fires and fear with publicly announced intentions to move NATO closer to Russia's borders despite years of warnings of what the response would be to such a move.
It is however the case that NATO was already sharing borders with Russia, so it's not that simple.
It's all about Crimea.
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Which major cities could be attacked from a major military base in Ukraine? Moscow? Seems closer to Latvia. I'm not seeing any that are significantly closer to Ukraine than from existing NATO countries.
Even setting that aside, it ignores the fact that NATO is a defensive alliance. That's proved by the fact that, so far, NATO has upheld that promise and not come to the aid of Ukraine.
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NATO just doesnt draft member nations, they have to want to be involved and meet certain conditions. Finland, Ireland and Sweden have chosen not to even though they would easily be admitted.
Why did Latvia, Romania, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania want to be part of NATO?
Re:Who Gives a Shit (Score:5, Insightful)
The US and UK DID NOT stand idly by, we actively flamed the fires and fear with publicly announced intentions to move NATO closer to Russia's borders despite years of warnings of what the response would be to such a move.
Ukraine wanted to join NATO out of fear that Russia would attack it. When NATO refused to outright reject Ukraine without any consideration, Russia attacked Ukraine. Russia was the aggressor in every sense of the word, not NATO.
In fact, NATO has never been an aggressor. A country that does not intend to attack its neighbors has nothing to fear from NATO. In its entire history, NATO has engaged in exactly zero non-retaliatory actions other than peacekeeping missions at the request of the host country's lawful government.
What rational reason, then, could Putin have for trying to keep Ukraine out of NATO, or for that matter, for Russia not joining NATO? His actions seem utterly irrational unless we assume that Putin has always intended to eventually take over Ukraine as a step towards reunifying the former Soviet Union.
Once you assume that Putin is an autocrat with dreams of world domination, trying to take over the continent one country at a time until he conquers everything, suddenly his behavior makes sense. And that is why this aggression cannot be tolerated. We've seen this pattern at least twice before in recent memory, and it never ends well. But this time, the aggressor has nukes. Stopping him early, and with sound resolve is the only hope for peace.
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Bullshit. Libya and War on Kosovo.
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In fact, NATO has never been an aggressor. A country that does not intend to attack its neighbors has nothing to fear from NATO. In its entire history, NATO has engaged in exactly zero non-retaliatory actions other than peacekeeping missions at the request of the host country's lawful government.
Oh, really? Or NATO just labeled their attacks [wikipedia.org] as peacekeeping? Where was Yugoslavia's sovereign rights in 1999?
And does Cuba [wikipedia.org] have any rights determining whom they befriended with?
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The north atlantic treaty from 1991.Russia was promised that NATO would not expand and that membership of eastern block countries like Poland would not happen.
The North Atlantic Treaty was in 1949, not 1991. And I assure you that Russia was not a party to it.
The US and UK et al denied there was any formal agreement on this, however recent publication of minutes of meetings has shown that the USSR/Russia was indeed given that commitment even though it wasn't written down. So I guess you could call it a verbal contract (except now it is a little more than that as the meeting minutes clearly show it happened)
That's simply false [nato.int]. Even Gorbachev himself confirmed in a 2014 interview [rbth.com] that the subject of NATO expansion was not discussed during the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. At all. The only agreement at any point was that NATO would not build military bases or install missiles in East Germany. NATO has not broken that treaty.
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Russia attacked it due to fear it would join NATO.
And again, if Putin did not intend to take over Ukraine, why would he fear Ukraine joining NATO?
NATO has been actively violating the treaty for decades increasingly pissing off Russia, it was only a matter of time before they responded.
Russia cannot possibly have been responding to any treaty violations by NATO, because no such treaty exists. If it did, you would have given the name of the supposed treaty. But you can't, because there isn't one. In reality, NATO considered allowing Ukraine to join, and backed down after Russia threatened to go to war if they did, but at no point did NATO close the door to membership, nor did they agree in an
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Sorry, Ukraine, not "the Ukraine". I'm about 30 years late.
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The US, the UK and the EU stood idly by doing absolutely fuck all except for sternly saying "tssk tssk" while Putin telegraphed his intentions for years to invade Ukraine
I don't think sanctions should be imposed for "telegraphing intentions" (i.e. signaling what your intentions are but not stating them openly nor performing them). That leaves too much room for interpretation.
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The US, the UK and the EU stood idly by doing absolutely fuck all except for sternly saying "tssk tssk" while Putin telegraphed his intentions for years to invade Ukraine
I don't think sanctions should be imposed for "telegraphing intentions" (i.e. signaling what your intentions are but not stating them openly nor performing them). That leaves too much room for interpretation.
Oh absolutely. No sanctions. What should have happened however is NATO announcing that if Putin crosses Ukrainian border he will meet NATO forces in battle - and the movement of enough NATO troops to Ukraine to be credible in that threat.
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Do you prefer Stephen King fiction:
"Mr. Putin has made a serious miscalculation.
He forgot he's no longer dealing with Trump."
And they're being invaded.
I was going to say something anti Putin. (Score:2)
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But I don't like Polonium.
Don't worry. They will not do that one again. Far too easy to attribute and frankly low amateur level. The ones deciding on this did apparently not know that radio-isotopes have fingerprints. Fuckups.
This is the Tories (Score:2)
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The more politically savvy of the British public have known for a couple of generations that you can't take the Tories at their word, least of all the current clown cabinet. They're corrupt as f**k & only looking out for their own interests. Don't believe them unless it's in the form of a legally binding document & the language isn't in that garbled nonsense they spout out in press conferences.
Exactly this. Some of the biggest donors to the Tory party are wealthy Russians. This is just more of the usual "do as I say, and not as I do" from Boris Johnson and his entourage.
oh no, not a full work day (Score:2)
while Ukrainians die....
So visions of the 70s coming? (Score:2)
Car less sundays, rolling blackouts and domestic gas curtailment coming?
People with islanding battery storage are going to be sitting pretty.
cut them all off (Score:2)
Please be careful however not to include too many countries or they may arrange for their own and live well.
And if you don't comply ... (Score:2)
this will illustrate... (Score:2)
...that ultimately, for all the hand-wringing and sympathy, Ukraine is fucked because nobody ACTUALLY cares enough to sacrifice anything, even trivial, to really matter.
NASA isn't breaking ties to the Russian space agency.
The US isn't pursuing its many methods of truly freezing assets and wealth of Russian oligarchs nor even specifically Putin, worldwide.
Nobody is ejecting Russian ambassadors or closing consulates. Nordstream 2 isn't cancelled, merely "suspended".
Putin gauged the west exactly right, as he
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Germany is already onboard [washingtontimes.com].
Italy has also finally gotten on board [wsau.com].
It looks like the last hold out is Tucker Carlson's buddy, Hungary's Viktor Orban. It probably doesn't help that Orban signed a below-market-rate deal with Russia for gas only a week or two ago. He was a fan of Putin until just a few days ago.
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Just as interesting Biden does not ban import of Russian oil, "Because it would not hurt Putin but would hurt the US consumer".
That is key move right there (Score:2)
Just as interesting Biden does not ban import of Russian oil, "Because it would not hurt Putin but would hurt the US consumer".
Right here is how you can tell the U.S. at least is not at all serious about stopping Russia.
Yes it would hurt the U.S. consumer but the way other countries could actually stop Russia (if they are not giving direct military aid, which they are not) is mainly by not sending money to Russia in exchange for things like oil.
Without money the Ukranian invasion may be too expensive to kee
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Or that's just holding another punch in reserve. Russia produces 17 percent of all natural gas and 12 percent of the world's oil, so sanctioning that would hit them where it hurts. Banning them from SWIFT hits them where it hurts. The collective other sanctions hit them where it hurts.
The first set of sanctions shaved 50% off their stock market in a single day. UBS no longer accepts Russian bonds as collatoral, marking them down to zero. Give that a bit to bite, then hit them with SWIFT, ratching up the pai
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You sound like EU apologist trying to hold down your gas bill.
The most effective form of punishment psychologically is that which is swift(pardon the pun), certain, and brutal.
The idea that Putin has not anticipated and allowed for getting cut off from SWIFT is silly. Why do think he had that pow wow with China before all this started? He was making certain that at least in the 'medium' term he has a outlet to sell his energy too, and other Russian industry has a path funnel money to. China also has their
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Re:Not gonna block Swift (Score:5, Interesting)
Annalena Baerbock - Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany
The current stance of the Foreign Ministry in Germany is that if Russia is kicked off SWIFT, it'll lead to power supply issues in Germany. And that they have to consider not taking measures that would make Putin have the last laugh.
Sounds to me as if there is some serious enough dependency on Russian gas already going on.
Looking at the numbers myself, there could be some local issues if the gas supply is cut in half (about 50% of Germany's gas comes from Russia). But on the whole it should be manageable with stopgap solutions like electric room heating, which of course will have energy prices increase significantly, but should be manageable.
Still, the current statements of the German government make it sound as if they see Germany being dependent on Russian gas already. To me a good reason to rip that band-aid off now and get out of that relationship, because it certainly won't get better beyond this point.
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Thanks for the insight.
I think this is going to kickstart serious moves to either revive nuclear and/or invest heavily into alternative energy sources. In December of last year [institutef...search.org] the US became the world's largest exporter of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), with most of the new deliveries going to Europe.
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That would be a sensible thing to do, which is why I have doubts that the politicians in charge will make the right choice there.
One alternative would be to extend the lifetime of lignite burning power plants, which have been making up a good chunk of Germany's electricity generation, and are to be phased out by 2030. I can see the Social Democrats and Free Democrats get behind that idea, but they'll have a hard time convincing the Green party of that (that is if they
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Nuclear isn't a replacement for gas. You can't just plug a gas boiler into an electric socket.
To make the transition Germany, like the UK, will need to retrofit heat pumps to millions of homes and buildings.
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But I don't think it'll get any easier if we continue going down the planned path, which was to potentially increase natural gas usage waiting for some kind of miracle to happen.
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Germany is making the transition, but it's a question of people being forced into fuel poverty right now. There is no quick fix, and the government is going to have to pump a lot of money into retrofitting.
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Fuel poverty versus massively funding a violent fascist. Guess they should have held onto the nuclear per plants. Plug in electric heaters can be used in a pinch. But hey filthy coal and Russian gas are a great substitute!
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You do know Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have been bombing Yemen for several years already right?
No one stopped buying their oil.
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You did know that Germany buying Saudi oil isn't fueling a fascist expansionist right on their doorstep, right?
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You did know that Germany buying Saudi oil isn't fueling a fascist expansionist right on their doorstep, right?
Just so you know Saudi oil is buying repression, global export of terrorism and killed hundreds of thousands of people in Yemen.
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Yeah no shit. But what's your point? That two wrongs agree better than one or funding that kind of wrong on you're own doorstep isn't somehow stupid as well as venal?
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But on the whole it should be manageable with stopgap solutions like electric room heating, which of course will have energy prices increase significantly, but should be manageable.
Define manageable. With gas and energy prices rising well over 200% in the past 4 months there's nothing "manageable" at the moment about energy in Europe. Many countries (including Germany) were already in a form of crisis mode before Russia even started moving troops to the Ukraine thanks to a major fuckup in the EU gas market over the past 2 years and a big mismanagement of reserves.
FYI I'm paying $0.54/kWh right now. And no I did not misplace a zero, and no Gazprom has not reduced supply yet. Germany an
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So what do you suggest? Blame Epic and Buy Apple phones?
Solve global warming, end world hunger, and while we figure out what to do in the long term about gas dependence on Russia (South Stream, I mean EU and Turkey are besties right?) we remember that the world is complexly interwoven and that attempts to spite a few Russians may very well be a carefully aimed shot in our own foot.
There is no easy suggestion or solution.
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I set the bar for "manageable" so low to mean that people won't outright die as a result of this (with some very specific Darwin Award worthy exceptions perhaps.
I doubt that people will freeze to death, because we still get a good amount of natural gas from other places than Russia.
Those that bear the main responsibility will of course get hurt the least. Thus it'll get very expensive and will be painful for a lot of 'innocent' people.
I might be more understanding if a s
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I set the bar for "manageable" so low
Well come up with something manageable then. Because your suggestion was unworkable. Again, thanks to so much electricity being generated by gas the electricity price is already insane, to say nothing of what would be a crippling load of electric heating suddenly appearing in a country which doesn't have very high electricity use in houses.
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and no Gazprom has not reduced supply yet.
They began tightening supplies in December [reuters.com].
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No, that's not what the article is saying at all and the flow through that pipeline in that way is borderline seasonal and definitely situational. The article is describing exactly that. Gazprom exports are not only ongoing the same they always have but are being topped up with their own reserves, very much the opposite of tightening supply.
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https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]
Quote:
"It is not fully clear whether Gazprom's modest exports level is a result of production constraints at home or an attempt to ensure a stronger demand once Nord Stream 2 is up and running,"
It is clear now.
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You only think it's clear because you're taking out of context a news writer's opinion on a very complex topic oil and gas supply and demand, and then extrapolating your own political bias. There's nothing clear about it, Gazprom is not only meeting all European contractual demands, they are also currently draining their strategic reserves. If your view were remotely correct they'd be filling them instead.
Oil and gas trading is insanely complex. Unless you analyse flows every day don't pretend to know what
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they are also currently draining their strategic reserves.
Of course they are. Then there is nothing left for Europe to seize in event of a war (or sanctions).
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I would hope that the Russian invasion would convince Germany to become energy independent, and restart the nuclear program they shuttered (imho too soon).
Keep plugging away at renewables, figure out storage, but in the mean time, like the next 20-30 years have enough nuclear capacity to heat the whole of Germany with electric baseboard heating. And start sending your sewage to Russia in the no un-used gas pipelines.
Re:I read that (Score:4, Informative)
We'll see. Russia was claiming to have their own payment network. The thing is, they only have 38 banks outside their country that use it whereas SWIFT has 11,000+. Add to that nobody, even the Russians, want rubles. And I'm sure the Chinese aren't going to be giving them any special deals in yuan -- famous for their debt-trap diplomacy that they are.
I can't see cutting the Russians out of SWIFT hurting other more than it hurts Russia. I think the delay is what nobody is talking about. With all major money transactions moving through SWIFT, SWIFT is like Peppridge Farms -- they remember what you did last summer. They know where all the Russian money gets transferred to. Want to know where all that oligarch cash is stashed? SWIFT knows where probably 99% of it moved.
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I can't see cutting the Russians out of SWIFT hurting other more than it hurts Russia.
You realise that Russia is a massive global energy trader and they don't generally trade with people if they can't transfer money. Even as Germany is telling Russia to GTFO of Europe they very much are also massively against the idea of booting them out of SWIFT, and so are many European countries who rely on Russian gas.
Here is just one example (Score:2)
I can't see cutting the Russians out of SWIFT hurting other more than it hurts Russia
It hurts India enough (fertilizer, just like many other places rely on Russian fertilizer) India is figuring out how to pay Russia [twitter.com] if Russia gets booted from Swift.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Putin went thru what he regards as the proper channels as well. Belarus was certainly on board.
I am not defending the SOB. He is an aggressor, and autocrat, and does not care about basic rights; but your argument falls a little flat. "My coalition is more righteous than your coalition"
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Russia voted to approve the invasion of Iraq. It was a dumb war.
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Putins war crimes are not excused because others did similarly, but neither side can claim a moral high ground here.
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I don't think so, for two reasons: 1. the US have participated and/or lead other interventions in the meantime, and they were positively evaluated (Syria and Libya). Other nations did not take a point of disapproving just because the US were involved. 2. Hostile invasions everywhere are disapproved as a general rule, whether or not led by the US; for example no nation approves the Yemen/Saudi Arabia war, the Tigray/Ethopia war, the war in Darfur (Sudan), etc.
There are plenty of awfully oppressing regimes in
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The double standard comes from voting rights. In 2003, several of Swift's biggest participating members supported the invasion.
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The UK forfeited that influence when it left the EU. And ironically there is a strong feeling it left the EU thanks to its own Russian influence campaign. There is more than circumstantial evidence that leading protagonists in the leave camp had ties to Moscow and Russian donors.
Bollocks.
And the EU is not "Europe", it's a political mob of self-interested unelected shits constituted to serve German banking interests.
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Actually, SCL Group, a British company, were the ones under suspicion of being contracted to implement illegal interference in the Brexit campaign. Much of the funds & logistical support came from wealthy, right-wing British nationalist donors. The British elites f**ked the Britons, no Russians necessary.
Indeed. These idiots did it all to themselves. Sure, there are smart people in the UK that saw the sheer unmitigated folly of leaving a large free-trade area voluntarily, but not enough of them. The Brexit will probably go down as one of the most extreme acts of stupidity in political history.
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I tell you one and one makes three.
Populous servant leader. Lol.
It's populist, and I think you accidentally left out glorious. Better tack that on quick, or he may not take you to heaven with him when Jesus comes down to pick him up.
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No wonder this an AC, who would want to put their name on this embarassing cope-fest.
If Trump didn't trip over his own ego when dealing with covid he'd be president right now, full stop. He blew a national crisis AND incumbent advantage. No one to blame but himself and his lack of ability.
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Europe is financially intertwined with Russia and since the Net 0 bollox as Europe cuts down on its greenhouse gas emittions it relies more and more on Russian gas etc.
And yes somehow France isn't. I wonder what magical source of energy they use.
The only way to seperate from Russia is to drown Greta Thunberg and her kind.
Christ, you're an idiot.