The news that the International Monetary Fund will become the first major international financial body to officially return to Russia since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 underscores the systemic pro-authoritarian impulses of the IMF and its tolerance to blunt violations of international law by Russia under its current Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, who needs to be replaced urgently. With the U.S. presidential election reaching fever pitch, the problem of Georgieva’s anti-Western bias can no longer be swept under the carpet.
The IMF’s decision to send an official mission to Russia represents far more than a symbolic victory for President Vladimir Putin. An IMF delegation pledging to visit Moscow for meetings with senior Russian officials next month provides not only a false veneer of legitimacy for the Kremlin at a time when other multilateral organizations are correctly shunning Putin but also the opportunity for his savvy economic officials to further distort the IMF’s representations of the Russian economy, which unsuspecting Western journalists have sadly echoed as fact. Furthermore, the IMF has inexplicably agreed to accept as the new Russian executive director a former Putin crony who is under U.S. sanctions.
