IMF postpones mission to Russia indefinitely

The International Monetary Fund has postponed its planned consultation mission with Russia indefinitely due to technical problems. Earlier, Ukraine and a number of European countries strongly opposed the resumption of cooperation with Moscow.

This was stated by Alexei Mozhin, the Russian executive director at the IMF, RBC-Ukraine reports citing his interview with TASS.

“The IMF management has informed the Russian side and the Board of Directors that the mission will be postponed indefinitely. The reason for postponing the mission was the mission's technical unpreparedness for consultations,” he said.

Earlier, the IMF said that its staff would begin virtual discussions with the Russian authorities on September 16, and then travel to the country for face-to-face discussions. This visit is scheduled for October 1.

Ukraine and its Western allies have objected to a mission to Russia on the grounds that it would demonstrate normalization of relations with Russia, despite the invasion and occupation of large parts of Ukrainian territory.

This would have meant that the IMF would have been the first major international financial organization to send an official mission to Russia after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Mozhin said that the Russian side is aware that many European countries “have publicly spoken out about the inadmissibility of resuming cooperation between the IMF and Russia, about the inadmissibility of holding such consultations.”

According to Mozhin, preparations for the consultations in question began more than a year ago, and the initiative came from the IMF staff. “The Russian side has never asked for consultations, but has always expressed its readiness to accept the IMF mission to fulfill its obligations under the IMF Charter. The Russian side reaffirms this readiness,” he said.

The last annual IMF mission visited Russia in November 2019, before the start of the COVID pandemic. There have been no IMF missions to Russia since the beginning of Russia's war against Ukraine.

Earlier, a group of nine Baltic and Nordic countries also sent a letter to IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, expressing concern about a process that they said risks normalizing relations with Moscow.

Author - Dmitriy Levchenko, 18/09/2024