With Pronin’s appointment to the Financial Monitoring Authority, Ukraine continues to lose momentum in the FATF.
During the fourth plenary meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), chaired by President Elisa de Anda Madrazo and held in Paris from October 22–24, the topic of financial threats posed by Russia was not discussed at all. In the final documents, Russia was mentioned only in the context of the suspension of the aggressor country’s FATF membership, which Ukraine had sought back in February 2023, remaining in effect.
In its previous reports, the FATF has emphasized the need for vigilance regarding schemes to circumvent international sanctions against Russia. Last year, the FATF warned of potential risks to the international financial system, including Russia’s growing financial interactions with countries subject to FATF sanctions, the risk of financing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and malicious cyber activity.
However, this year the group’s documents contain no mention at all of the risks associated with the aggressor country.
As early as June 2023, Russia intensified its lobbying campaign to avoid being included on the FATF blacklist. Moscow pressured and blackmailed half a dozen countries, including Saudi Arabia, India, Turkey, Mexico, and the UAE, urging them to resist the restrictions. ZN.UA previously wrote about why Russia should be included on the FATF blacklist.
Due to Ukraine’s passive position within this organization, no new statements regarding Russia have been made. The State Financial Monitoring Service, responsible for international coordination in this area, has shown little initiative to raise the issue of financial risks associated with Russia and reflect them in FATF documents. It should be added that this is not the first time ZN.UA has drawn attention to the passivity of the Financial Monitoring Service’s leadership on this issue.
As a reminder, MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak reported on September 3 that the fortifications erected by the Poltava Regional Military Administration (OVA) did not meet requirements and that their construction could have been at least 200 million hryvnias over budget. On October 21, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau conducted searches of individuals and companies close to Pronin, implicated in the embezzlement case related to the fortifications’ construction. These include Pronin’s first deputy at the State Financial Monitoring Service, Bohdan Korolchuk (who served as Pronin’s first deputy during his tenure as chairman of the Poltava Regional Military Administration), the contractor, Enki Construction LLC, and officials at various levels of the Poltava Regional Military Administration. Zheleznyak appealed to Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko to recall Pronin from his endless business trips.