Sanctioned former Russia central banker joins IMF executive board

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By Karin Strohecker

LONDON (Reuters) -Ksenia Yudaeva, under sanctions from the United States, has been elected as the International Monetary Fund’s executive director for Russia and Syria, the IMF said on Friday.

The executive board is the IMF’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, a former adviser to Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina, would become the country’s new representative.

Yudaeva declined to comment.

A spokesperson for the fund said executive directors were IMF officials and have the duty to act in the interest of the lender and in line with its legal and policy frameworks.

“They may, and in practice they regularly, convey the views of the countries or groups of countries that have elected them,” the spokesperson added.

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 lender 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.

Speaking on Yudaeva’s resignation from the Russian central bank, Governor Nabiullina said her former advisor had helped maintain financial stability in the country.

(Additional reporting by Libby George in London, David Lawder in Washington, D.C. and Gleb Bryanski in Moscow; Editing by Mark Potter)