FATF to consider blacklisting Russia next week - Politico
Kyiv • UNN
The FATF international group will decide next week whether to blacklist Russia. Ukraine has stepped up its campaign to downgrade Russia, providing evidence of its cooperation with high-risk countries.
The International Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental organization that leads the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, will decide next week whether to add Russia to its blacklist, Politico reports, citing a confidential document it has seen, UNN writes.
Details
As noted, getting on the FATF's black or gray list can seriously undermine a country's financial reputation and is considered economically disastrous for most countries.
The FATF suspended Russia's membership in February 2023 - a year after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine - but has so far refrained from downgrading it. Now, Ukraine has stepped up its campaign to change that, the newspaper writes.
Publicly, the FATF has stated that it considers Russia's aggression unacceptable and contrary to its "core principles," but in practice, downgrading Russia requires consensus from its multilateral members.
Currently, the intergovernmental body brings together about 40 countries, including China, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia, three times a year to assess which countries should be moved to or from the gray and black lists.
According to the document, Ukraine first requested that Russia be included in the list of high-risk jurisdictions in April 2022 and has since then been constantly - albeit unsuccessfully - providing new evidence to downgrade Moscow.
"To succeed in the latest round of meetings, Ukraine will have to convince the internal FATF body charged with reviewing nominations and supporting evidence, which meets on October 22, to recommend the proposal for formal consideration," the publication notes.
If Ukraine's latest attempt is successful, Russia will reportedly join Iran, North Korea, and Myanmar on the FATF's list of countries with the highest risk level.
The dossier submitted to the members, according to the newspaper, "emphasizes the close financial and military cooperation between Russia and high-risk countries such as North Korea and Iran." "It also emphasizes Russia's funding of private groups such as the Wagner Group and their related illegal activities," the newspaper notes.
It is also reported that "a reference to the role that channels on the Telegram messaging app and cryptocurrencies play in facilitating Russia's financing of terrorism and laundering ‘money derived from goods stolen during its invasion of Ukraine’ from grain to minerals".
