The State Finance Monitoring Service prepares for the next FATF meeting

From 23 to 28 June of this year the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine (under the quota of the MONEYVAL Committee of the Council of Europe and with the support of the EU Anti-Corruption Initiative in Ukraine (EUACI) project) will participate in the FATF Plenary and Working Group Meetings, which will be held in Singapore (Republic of Singapore).

Ukraine and its partners have repeatedly drawn and continue to draw the attention of the FATF regarding the growing risks and threats provoked by the russian federation due to its bloody war against Ukraine.

After the previous meeting, the State Financial Monitoring Service compiled all FATF statements regarding russia’s risks since the beginning of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. According to the latest FATF statement:

“FATF members note with concern the potential risks to the international financial system, including growing financial connectivity of russia with countries subject to FATF countermeasures, risks of proliferation financing, and malicious cyber activities and ransomware attacks. Due to the gravity of these risks, many FATF members are taking proactive measures to protect themselves and the global financial system.

The FATF calls upon all jurisdictions to continue to remain vigilant due to the above-mentioned risks. As they have done since the russian federation commenced its war of aggression, FATF members will continue to monitor the situation and the risks posed to the global financial system. As a suspended member of the FATF, the russian federation still remains accountable for its obligation to implement the FATF Standards.”

During the meetings in Singapore, one of the key issues should be to restrain russia’s growing efforts on strengthening of its ties with North Korea, which have gone from covert to open and have direct signs of violations of the UN Security Council Resolutions, and therefore of the specific FATF Recommendations.

In this regard, on the eve of the FATF meetings, the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine together with the State Financial Monitoring Service have issued a press release calling on the FATF to take appropriate actions to protect the security of the global financial system and to include russia to the “black” list at the next Plenary meeting. The press release can be read here.

“russia continues to grossly violate FATF’s principles, by serving as a backdoor for Iran and North Korea to access the global financial system. russia also attempts to hijack objective technical processes, from vetoing North Korea sanctions monitoring mechanism inside the UN to vowing to send delegates to the upcoming FATF plenary in violation of its membership suspension. FATF now possesses an overwhelming amount of evidence to support an escalation of restrictive measures against risks russia poses. Now is the time for decisive action,” Igor Cherkaskyi, Head of the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine said.”