Opinion: IMF’s trip to Moscow is effectively enabling Russia’s war against Ukraine

You probably haven’t heard that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is preparing to send a mission to Russia. That’s because top IMF officials have been trying to draw as little public attention to their plans as possible – which ought to tell you something. Fund officials themselves know that this is a scandal in the making.
The IMF is about to send its first official mission to Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The visit later this month, which is to be led by Deputy Head of Division Jacques Miniane, marks a quiet but significant shift in the Fund’s approach toward Russia. Western nations previously pressured the IMF to drop the idea of sending missions in 2022 and 2023. Now, the IMF is reengaging with Moscow, despite Russia’s continued war in Ukraine.
This decision is a big diplomatic win for the Kremlin, even if the IMF is acting as though it’s business as usual. The Fund has tried to keep the mission low profile: we know about it mainly because of an incidental remark made to Reuters by the head of the IMF’s Russia department.
A terse IMF press release went largely unnoticed by the media.
The IMF claims to be outside politics, but its actions show a blatant disregard for international law and human rights. The invasion of Ukraine isn’t a matter of policy debate—it’s a crime. By engaging with Moscow now, the IMF sends a message that Russian actions can be overlooked.
This isn’t neutrality; it’s complicity.
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and the IMF leadership are detached from the brutal realities of the ongoing war. They are focused on a vision for a postwar order in which peace and stability prevail. But this vision is built on arrogance—the belief that Fund bureaucrats understand the future better than anyone else.
In reality, by attempting to move toward normalization, they strengthen Russia today, prolonging the war and emboldening future aggressions.
The IMF sees Russia’s war on Ukraine as irrelevant to its policy mandate. Yet the war can’t be ignored even if one insists on viewing economics in isolation from everything else: Russia’s aggression is reshaping Europe’s economy and destabilizing global markets.
By choosing to look away from this grim reality, the Fund is effectively enabling Russia’s actions.
The mission to Moscow sends a clear message: Russia can count on the IMF’s support even as it continues its war.
The IMF’s job is to promote global economic cooperation and stability, not to ensure the financial stability of an aggressor state. If it acts to boost Russia’s economy, the IMF will be advancing Moscow’s ability to keep the war going.
The only way to bring this war to a just end is by crippling Russia’s war machine. The rest of the international community—minus the Fund, apparently—understands this well.
That’s precisely why western governments have put so much effort into imposing a vast array of sanctions on Russia. Undermining the Russian economy is precisely the point. (It speaks volumes, by the way, that Aleksei Mozhin, the current Russian executive director of the IMF, is set to be replaced by ex-central bank official Ksenia Yudaeva, who has been under U.S. sanctions since April 2022.)
In its reports, the IMF prefers to avoid blaming Russia for the direct effects of its invasion: economic shocks in Europe, soaring food prices in Africa, and the suffering of millions of people.
As for Ukraine itself, it’s estimated that repairing the damage from Russia’s unprovoked invasion will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. The IMF’s reluctance to confront these facts is nothing short of a lie.
Rest assured that the Kremlin will make the most of the mission. Russian officials will hug and smile for the cameras, detailing every minute of the visit. They will cite it as proof that the war is as good as over, that Russia has been forgiven by the West, and that Ukraine no longer matters.
To Russia, this is more than a financial review—it’s a geopolitical victory. The IMF’s actions will be spun as a signal that the West and the U.S. have written Ukraine off, leaving Russia powerful, prosperous, and influential.
This mission sends another clear message: the man U.S. President Joe Biden once called a war criminal, Vladimir Putin of Russia, will now receive the imprimatur of one of the world’s most reputable Western institutions. This is a diplomatic and moral disaster.
The world cannot afford to let the IMF continue down this path of appeasement. The Fund must be held accountable for its actions. It cannot turn a blind eye to Russian atrocities while claiming to work toward global economic cooperation and stability.
By normalizing relations with Russia, the IMF is doing more than just engaging in technical assessments—it is enabling a war that has killed hundreds of thousands and destabilized the world economy.
If the IMF wants to live up to its mission of promoting monetary cooperation, trade, and economic growth, it must stand against Russia’s aggression, not facilitate it.