Tomorrow the United States will denounce to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) the “assault on fundamental international laws” that Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its war “illegal and unprovoked” entails.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who participates in this week's IMF spring meeting in Washington, announced in a statement Wednesday the message she will send to the rest of the Fund's members and managers at the meeting of the Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) that will take place tomorrow.
“Russia's war against Ukraine has jeopardized the global recovery from the pandemic and aggravated inflation, with vulnerable populations around the world suffering the effects of rising food prices,” Yellen said in her statement.
On Tuesday, the leaders of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank (WB) and other organizations urged the world to act quickly to stop the food crisis that strikes the poorest and which is the result of a price hike due to the war in Ukraine.
The World Bank Index that measures global food prices recorded a record increase of 37% in March compared to the same month last year, while pesticide costs rose by 20% in March compared to January, increases that WB President David Malpass attributed to the war in Ukraine: “The Russia's invasion of Ukraine has caused enormous threats to the world's food and nutrition security in the short term.”
Almost since the start of the Russian invasion on 24 February, the UN and other organizations have warned that war can be a very hard blow to many countries, given the rise in fuel prices it has caused and because both Russia and Ukraine are two of the largest producers of cereals and fertilizers in the world.
Among other things, Russia and Ukraine account for more than half of the world's supply of sunflower oil and 30% of that of wheat.
For her part, the US Treasury Secretary already pledged to the US House of Representatives on April 6 to denounce Russia's actions in Ukraine at the insistence of the Republican legislators, who asked Yellen to make Russia a “pariah” of international financial institutions.
Expulsion of Russia from the IMF and the World Bank has been a proposed idea from different areas since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, but the Fund's managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, already explained at a press conference in early March that this is not possible.
Georgieva pointed out that the only way the institution's statutes contemplate to expel a member is the violation of his financial obligations, something that the Russians have not done to date.
Russia is one of the members of the Monetary and Financial Committee of the Fund that will meet tomorrow and whose meeting will be chaired by the first vice-president of the Spanish Government and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño.
On Wednesday, finance officials from the United States, the European Union (EU) and France, among others, left a hybrid G20 meeting in Washington in protest against Russia's presence and its invasion of Ukraine, US, community and French sources told EFE.
Yellen herself, the French Minister of Finance, Bruno Le Maire, and the European Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, were among the leaders who expressed their disagreement with Russia's participation in the meeting and were absent from the meeting when it was already started.
Specifically, Yellen and Gentiloni got up from their chairs just as Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov began to speak, American and community sources explained.
(With information from EFE)
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