UPDATE on FATF
Russia avoids blacklisting again
It didn’t take a psychic to predict this.
Russia once again avoided efforts to be added to an international list of countries with weak money laundering compliance. As I projected last week, despite all the overwhelming evidence about Russia’s collaboration with North Korea and Iran, North Korean troops moving into Ukraine to supplement the meat grinder of Russia’s aggression there, Iranian drones and other weapons being used on Ukrainian civilians, and numerous reports of Russian sanctions evasion, Financial Action Task Force (FATF) failed to reach consensus on blacklisting Russia.
The move was rejected by China, India, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa. Other reports suggest Brazil also rejected the proposal to blacklist its buddy. I note these are all BRICS countries, except for Saudi Arabia, which often hangs out in that company, has received a formal invitation, but has not formally joined yet.
Putin closed the BRICS conference in Kazan this week - an event that included a declaration about terrorism being a “common threat,” even as Russia recently delisted the Taliban as a terrorist organization, and an embarrassing and disgusting visit by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, whose warm embrace of and bowing to petty tyrant and accused war criminal Putin was duly noted by the international community as particularly nauseating, while Ukrainian civilians die at Putin’s orders and Gutteres rejected an invitation to a peace summit in Switzerland.
Ukrainian President Zelensky decided he’d had enough and rejected the UN chief’s attempt at smoothing the relationship by trying to come to Kyiv. Screw that guy! And Zelensky wasn’t the only one.
Guterres’ move garnered various reactions, including from Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, who indirectly challenged the U.N. head to step down.
Yulia Navalnaya, wife of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, made even harsher comments.
“It was the third year of the war, and the UN Secretary-General was shaking hands with a murderer,” she posted on X.
I’m not going to detail the lengthy list of evidence that supports Russia’s blacklisting. Russia’s suspension from FATF and Rosfinmonitoring’s (Russia’s FIU) suspension from the Egmont group are just the tip of the iceberg. But consensus is required, and the participation of Russia’s BRICS buddies almost certainly precludes that.
It also appears to me, watching from the sidelines, that the international community is actually afraid of Putin!
Germany and the United States are reportedly slowing Ukraine’s invitation to join NATO. Now, I understand that an immediate NATO membership would draw the entire alliance into a war with Russia because of Article 5 obligations. But an invitation does not equal immediate membership, and Zelensky is well aware that Ukraine couldn’t become a full member until Russia is defeated.
The UK has not given permission for Ukraine to use its Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia from donated fighter aircraft.
But Ukraine has adapted and overcome.
So far, Ukraine’s long-range strikes—which have reached all the way to Russia’s Arctic shores in the north and areas bordering Kazakhstan in the east—have been executed with domestically produced weapons. In addition to drones, Kyiv has also targeted Russia with Ukrainian-made Neptune cruise missiles, although in much smaller numbers. Zelensky recently said that Kyiv has developed ballistic missiles, but they don’t appear to have been used yet.
While the U.S. and its allies have allowed Ukraine to fight with Western weapons in Russia’s border regions, such as Kursk, they have repeatedly denied Zelensky’s requests to hit more remote Russian targets, such as military airfields, with ATACMS or Storm Shadow missiles that had been provided to Kyiv.
Ukraine’s experience fighting the Russians for the past 10 years alone should make it a more capable and experienced NATO member than most. But allies appear timid, still terrified of this vague concept of “escalation.”
FATF can’t reach consensus to blacklist.
The EU can’t reach consensus to ratched up sanctions.
Some in NATO are terrified to even discuss an invitation for Ukraine to the alliance!
And only overt threats of secondary sanctions to third countries that act as transshipment points, helping Russia get its paws on critical and restricted goods and technologies seem to be effective in stopping these actors.
The only thing that these countries are more terrified of than Putin is losing their access to the global financial system via US secondary sanctions. That’s why Putin is so desperate to create alternative payment mechanisms and to create a financial messaging system to bypass SWIFT, from which major Russian banks have been ejected after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Sanctions are great and often effective, but they can’t be the lone tool to stop aggressive autocrats who are intent on destroying its neighbors in a vain quest for power.
Dammit...