By Karin Strohecker
LONDON (Reuters) -Ksenia Yudaeva, under sanctions from the United States, is listed as the International Monetary Fund’s executive director for Russia and Syria, according to the Fund’s website.
The executive board is the Fund’s top day-to-day business decision-making body. Executive directors are elected by member countries or by groups of countries.
The outgoing Russian executive director announced in September that Yudaeva, former adviser to Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina, would become Russia’s new representative.
The IMF did not immediately comment. A U.S. Treasury spokesperson declined to comment on sanctions related to Yudaeva and whether she would be able to serve as the IMF executive director for Russia and Syria.
The executive board discusses all aspects of the Fund’s work, from the IMF staff’s annual health checks of member countries’ economies to policy issues relevant to the global economy.
Russia has been a contentious issue for the Fund since its full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in February 2022.
The IMF in September had to abandon a short-lived initiative to resume routine “Article IV” assessments of Russia’s economic policies after several European countries objected to the re-engagement. The Fund had halted the assessments after the war started.
(Additional reporting by Libby George in London and David Lawder in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Mark Potter)
