There is no forced US intermediaries. What are you referring to?

"U.S. control over transactions within the EU.

..The transaction was automatically routed through the US, possibly because of the USD currency used in the transaction, which is how the United States was able to seize the funds.." [0]

Also: "The U.S. Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) enforces U.S. economic sanctions programs ... and any person or entity physically located in the United States (including branches of foreign corporations)" [2]. And most foreign banks do have US branches. And if transaction is in US Dollars, OFAC applies too [1]. I can dig deeper, down the rabbit hole :)

All right. Seems like if a transaction involves USD, it must pass US based correspondent bank.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Worldwide_Interban...

[1] https://nacm.org/pdfs/webinars/FCIBWebinar_Compliance_OFAC_U...

[2] https://www.riskscreen.com/kyc360/of-counsel/ofac-compliance...

the whole european region (+ schengen) does not use swift at all (at least not since 2018)

Yes, It was noted in this thread few times. I'm talking about all other transfers, not EU-EU. Even then, the wikipedia link shows that one EU-EU transaction which involved USD, was affected.