But what isolation? Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began two and a half years ago, the plan seemed clear: isolate Russia internationally and hit it through sanctions to compensate for the military imbalance in favor of Moscow. The operation, however, worked only partially and the iisolation has been circumvented on several fronts. Yesterday at the Ecofin meeting, very little frequented the presence of the did not go unnoticed IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva who reiterated the start of his mission after 5 years of absence.
Perhaps people did not want to believe it when the Russian executive director of the IMF, Alexey Mozhin at the beginning of September he had said that the Fund would restart the Online consultations on September 16th and will continue with a visit by the IMF delegation to Moscow for meetings with Russian officials until October 1st. But the confirmation yesterday's unleashed the protests from 9 European countries, condensed into one letter which they wanted to deliver to Georgieva yesterday, as reported by Reuters.
A dialogue with Russia would damage the reputation of the Fund
Resuming talks with a country that has invaded another would damage the Fund’s reputation, they say. After Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the IMF halted all annual consultations with Russia, which the Washington-based lender of last resort conducts for all its members.
“We would like to express our strong dissatisfaction for these IMF plans,” said the finance ministers of the 9 signatory countries: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Poland in the letter to the IMF chief, seen by Reuters. L'Italy is not among the signatures. Georgieva attended the meeting of the EU finance ministers and central bankers in Budapest and asked her about the IMF’s plans, EU officials said. “What recommendations does the IMF want to give Russia at the end of the consultation? How to better manage a war economy?” a senior eurozone official said.
The letter states that, as an aggressor country, Russia should not benefit from the IMF's advice and notes that if the IMF were to carry out its plans, would decrease the availability of donor countries to support Ukraine through IMF initiatives, because would undermine confidence in the IMF.
“Donors can choose other institutions like the World Bank or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development,” the senior official said.
The high risk of data pollution
The letter also said that any since Russia would have provided the IMF would have been censored to show that the country's economy was supposedly doing well and resisting Western sanctions, making the IMF assessment inaccurate. Moscow would also use the mission for its own purposes. propaganda and would damage the IMF's reputation, he said.
"We therefore ask the IMF not to resume cooperation with Russia and to remain committed to the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter,” the nine countries said. “We urge all international financial institutions, including the IMF and its leadership, to continue to abstain from activities involving the aggressor state and not to resume dialogue as long as Russia continues its war of aggression against Ukraine,” the letter reads.
The IMF said this week that its planned visit to Russia was in line with its regular obligations and those of Russia as a member country. The international organization's last annual mission visited Russia in November 2019, before the start of the COVID pandemic. There have been no IMF missions to Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine. Many Western nations have also raised the possibility of aexpulsion of Russia from the IMF in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine, but this proved difficult due to the reluctance of other members with large voting shares, such as China and India.
Le Western sanctions have had some effect. Economic growth is mostly fueled by huge war investments, inflation is running high, the Central Bank will soon be forced to raise interest rates to try to make the cost of living less unsustainable, a growing number of companies are in difficulty and labor is starting to become scarce. But on a global level, thanks above all to relations with China and India, Russia is not isolated at all. And the IMF mission confirms this.
Russia produces kamikaze drone with Chinese engine
Just this week Reuters reports that Russia last year began producing a new long-range kamikaze attack drone called Garpiya-A1, using Chinese engines and components, which it later deployed in the war in Ukraine, according to two sources at a European intelligence agency and documents seen by Reuters. The intelligence, which included a production contract for the new drone, company correspondence about the manufacturing process and financial documents, indicated that IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian state arms manufacturer Almaz-Antey, produced more than 2.500 Garpiyas from July 2023 to July 2024.
