Lithuanian Finance Minister Gintarė Skaistė on Thursday welcomed the International Monetary Fund’s decision to postpone its planned mission to Russia indefinitely.
According to Skaistė, the IMF may have been influenced, among other factors, by calls from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, and Poland urging Executive Director Kristalina Georgieva to reconsider the decision to resume economic consultations with Russia.
“It seems to me that our move has prompted the IMF to reconsider its decision because what we see from public comments in the media is that the IMF’s decision to resume its mission in Russia has been postponed indefinitely,” the minister told the Žiniu Radijas radio.
“I think this is a good decision considering all the reputational risks that would have been posed by their wish to revive relations with Russia,” she added.
Aleksei Mozhin, the IMF’s executive director for Russia, told Russian media on Wednesday that the IMF had postponed the mission to Russia indefinitely due to “technical unpreparedness”.
Skaistė said the IMF’s earlier decision to resume economic consultations with Russia seemed “a bit schizophrenic” given its financial assistance to Ukraine.
“The IMF is continuously providing additional funds to Ukraine, and it seems a bit schizophrenic when you give support to Ukraine with one hand, while at the same time advising Russia on how to manage its economy,” she said.
In early September, the IMF announced its intention to send its first mission to Russia after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine in October to discuss “the country’s economic development and policies”.
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