Minister of Finance of Ukraine Sergii Marchenko told ZEIT ONLINE newspaper about the need to exclude russia from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF).

“russia is doing everything to undermine the world order based on rules and standards, posing a serious threat to global efforts to fight financial crimes,” said Sergii Marchenko.

The Minister of Finance of Ukraine is calling on member states to add russia to the blacklist of high-risk countries at the FATF session this week.

The FATF is an association of 39 countries to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, which includes the USA, Germany, China as well as russia. From Monday to Friday of this week, the delegates of the FATF member countries will meet for the organization’s regular plenary session in Paris.

According to the FATF statute, member countries must combat the financing of terrorism. Minister of Finance Sergii Marchenko emphasized that the russian federation cooperates with numerous terrorist organizations, including the Wagner group. Recently, the United States included Wagner’s group in the so-called list of transnational criminal organizations. The European Union also imposed sanctions on Wagner’s group and several of its members.

The Minister of Finance noted that the inclusion of the russian federation in the FATF list of high-risk countries, like Iran or North Korea, would greatly complicate banking operations with russian partners. Banks will carefully monitor transactions related to the russian federation in one way or another. The consequence of this will be an even more weakened russian economy, and putin will have much more problems with financing the war in Ukraine.

Some russian banks are already on the European Union and the United States sanctions lists. However, only a small part of the russia’s banking system is currently under sanctions. Companies in the russian federation can simply move their accounts from the sanctioned institutions to those that are still able to do business largely unhindered.

For reference

The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) is an intergovernmental organization that sets global standards in combating money laundering and terrorist financing. It assesses the compliance of national systems with these standards. It was founded in 1989, the headquarters is in Paris. The FATF plenary meeting, during which decisions are made, is held three times a year.