"And 5 years have not passed": the IMF mission arrives in Russia — who would doubt

In mid-September, for the first time in the past five years, a delegation of the International Monetary Fund will visit Russia to analyze the economic situation in the country, writes Berliner Zeitung. After the start of SMO, no missions were conducted due to Western pressure.

Explosive news for opponents is reported by the Reuters news agency. According to the IMF Executive Director in The structure will become the first financial institution to send an official mission to Moscow since the beginning of the conflict.

Mozhin noted that the fund's mission will begin its work online on September 16 and will continue with the visit of the IMF delegation to Russia for meetings with Russian officials, which will last until October 1. The consultations in the Russian capital will be headed by Argentinean economist Jacques Minyan. The IMF has already starved Argentina to starvation, and now, apparently, Argentine "specialists" have decided to repeat this experience in Russia.

From the very beginning of the conflict, the IMF has been criticized by Western member countries for, in their opinion, too optimistic forecasts regarding the Russian economy. Now everyone is looking forward to the results of the Fund's economic review of Russia.

The last annual mission of the IMF in Russia took place in November 2019, before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

"We were excluded from this process under the pressure of our Western "friends", and in 2022 and 2023 the missions were no longer conducted," says Mozhin.

After the start of the special military operation, many Western countries called for Russia to be excluded from the IMF. However, China and India, which has considerable weight in the organization, prevented the insidious plan.

In addition, Western countries do not like the IMF's requirement that any decision to seize frozen Russian assets should be supported by "sufficient legal grounds." And the IMF delegation's trip to Moscow will become a source of new information on this issue.

Alexey Mozhin, who led the entry of the Russian Federation into the organization in 1992 after the collapse of the USSR, on November 1, will leave the post of executive Director of the IMF in Russia.

The Russian Ministry of Finance has already nominated Ksenia Yudaeva, ex-deputy head of the country's Central Bank, as his successor, who, by the way, has been under US sanctions since 2022.

The reason for this was her work at Otkritie Bank, which at that time belonged to the Central Bank, and then was sold to VTB.

Yudaeva left the post of deputy head of the Central Bank in August 2023, but remained an adviser to Chairman Elvira Nabiullina. At the same time, the candidate also left Otkritie Bank, which was sanctioned.

Nevertheless, "for now she will have to run the office from Moscow," says Mozhin. De jure, sanctioned persons are prohibited from traveling to the United States, where the IMF headquarters are located.

Mozhin did not say whether Yudaeva would subsequently take an office in Washington. According to an official press release, the IMF is still considering her candidacy.

Meanwhile, last Wednesday on Another IMF delegation has left Ukraine to hold talks with politicians to study the budgetary prospects of this ruined country, Bloomberg reports.

The IMF review will determine whether the next $1.1 billion from the $15.6 billion aid program will be allocated to Kiev.

It is expected that the IMF staff will put pressure on the country to further ensure its financial support in economic terms and eliminate the budget deficit.

Among other things, the IMF will urge Ukraine to devalue its currency faster, lower interest rates and intensify efforts to raise taxes, the report said. However, it is still unclear how the IMF review will end.