Earlier today, Russian media reported that Ukrainian president Zelensky ultimately declined talks with Russia due to what he called terms of “capitulation” from Moscow. According to RT:

Russia’s military operation in Ukraine is continuing after the country’s leadership declined to negotiate, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday.

President Vladimir Putin previously ordered the Russian troops to halt their advance on Friday, awaiting a response from Kiev, Moscow said. It added that the offensive continued on Saturday.

Alexey Arestovich, an adviser at Zelensky’s office, confirmed to Ukrainian media that Kiev has declined the talks with Russia, citing the “terms” put forward by Moscow through intermediaries. “It was an attempt to force us into capitulation,” he said, without elaborating.

Zelensky may have publicly shown interest in peace talks with Russia as a ploy to get the west to provide more substantive support. Germany has announced that it has reversed its long time position and is now getting ready to send weapons to Ukraine. Der Spiegel reported:

The federal government wants to deliver 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 “Stinger” surface-to-air missiles from Bundeswehr stocks to Ukraine “as soon as possible” . This was announced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD).

Even more concerning, it is just now being reported that Germany has finally agreed to remove Russia from the SWIFT banking system. According to BBC News, the cutoff from SWIFT will initially only involve some Russian banks but no further details on which banks were provided:

The measures agreed by the US, UK, Europe and Canada also include restricting the Russian central bank’s international reserves, the nations said in a joint statement.

This comes after an emotional speech given earlier by Zelensky calling for immediate EU membership for Ukraine and Russia’s removal from SWIFT. Germany had reportedly been one of the holdouts on this decision, along with Hungary. According to Euronews:

On his Twitter account, Zelenskyy shared he was receiving “support calls” from several European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Swiss President Ignazio Cassis and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who he said offered “concrete assistance to Ukraine”.

An earlier misunderstanding regarding a missed call from Italian PM Mario Draghi was also cleared up. Zelenskyy claimed that Draghi “in a phone conversation supported Russia’s disconnection from SWIFT” and promised defence assistance.

Bloomberg reports that Wall Street interests had advised the Biden administration not to cut Russia from SWIFT, arguing that the blowback on the U.S. could be dangerous:

Opponents of the idea passed along a warning: Booting Russia from the critical global system — which handles 42 million messages a day and serves as a lifeline to some of the world’s biggest financial institutions — could backfire, sending inflation higher, pushing Russia closer to China and shielding financial transactions from scrutiny by the West. It might also encourage the development of a SWIFT alternative that could eventually damage the supremacy of the U.S. dollar.