London, 25 February

In his statement to the BBC, British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said today, "We'd like to go further, we'd like to use SWIFT - this is the financial system that allows Russians

to move money around the world to receive payments for cancellations.

However, he said: "But you know, like a lot of things, these are international organizations, and if every State doesn't want to kick them out of the SWIFT system, it's gonna be hard."

What he saw as the "last option," in turn, French Finance Minister Bruno Lomir said Friday that the option of isolating Russia from the SWIFT Global Interbank Payments System remained.

The United States and the European Union did not resort to isolating Russia from the SWIFT regime as part of new severe sanctions imposed on Moscow after its invasion of Ukraine, but United States President Joe Biden said they could reconsider the issue.

For his part, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner also said today that EU countries will examine all possible sanctions against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

"All options are on the table," Lindner said before a meeting with other finance ministers from the euro group in Paris.

He added: "The first set of sanctions against Russia have been imposed and will be detrimental to the Russian people and severely impede the Russian economy."