Japanese municipalities and companies have started facing the challenge of sending money to their offices in Russia as it has been cut off from the SWIFT global interbank payment system. The exclusion of some Russian banks from the system announced recently by Western nations and Japan in a fresh round of sanctions for Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine has resulted in rising anxieties over a lack of operating funds. “I contacted several financial institutions. But I was told that sending money is impossible,” said Masashi Mitani, an official of Wakkanai on Japan’s northernmost main island o…