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OCTOBER 2024

Russia Talks With IMF Make Western Analysts Boil Over

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Russia Talks With IMF Make Western Analysts Boil Over

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Written by Uriel Araujo, PhD, anthropology researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has postponed its consultation mission with Russia over alleged technical issues (indefinitely), according to Alexei Mozhin, Russia’s director at the IMF. The now postponed visit which was scheduled to start last week would have been the first official visit of a major international financial body to the country since the February 2022 crisis in Ukraine.

The last IMF annual mission to visit Russia took place in November 2019, before the pandemic. The planned IMF mission has in fact been the target of a lot of Western criticism. Russia has indeed suspended its membership from a number of multinational institutions and yet two weeks ago it was reported that the IMF was “coming back” to Russia. The “wartime review” was postponed after European states protested.

In any case, some Western analysts have criticized the IMF for what they saw as a “victory” for “Russian propaganda.” Others still have seen it as a sign of “desperation” from Moscow, based on the fact that the Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that “yes, we have the budget revenues growing, and the deficit is minimal, non-oil and gas revenues have a good performance, oil and gas ones have the incremental growth but there is no spare money.” Not too much should be made of this matter-of-fact admission, though. The Russian Federation, today’s most heavily sanctioned state on the planet, is doing quite well economically, overall.

Its economy has grown by 4.4 percent in the first seven months of 2023 – which is fairly higher than the 3.2 growth the IMF had forecasted for the country (and that was already more than in any of the world’s most advanced economies).

In 2023, according to World Bank data, its GNI per capita grew by 11.2% and reached US$ 14250, thereby making Russia a “high-income” country for the first time since 2015 – before it was considered “upper-middle-income”. However, it is still true that the nation is facing inflation and some labor shortages. More importantly, financial discipline will be needed in the face of the lack of foreign cash reserves. The state’s National Wealth Fund boasted $143billion of reserves in July 2022, but, as of the end of 2023, this has gone down to $56 billion.

Now, back to the IMF – its ongoing engagement with Russia must be seen as part of a larger context: four emerging market nations (namely Russia, China, Brazil and India) are among the ten largest members of the IMF. After years of criticizing the IMF, Moscow seems to be reversing its stance by its recent announcement of a representative with the organization – and some see this as a major shift.

The truth is that, contrary to Western propaganda, Moscow has actually sought to cooperate with them and the West since the nineties – time again being betrayed by the West in the process. I’ve written before on the breach of the 1990 promise (on NATO expansion) for instance.

As I also wrote before, although the Russian leader Vladimir Putin himself was never a radical “Westernist” in the likes of Boris Yeltsin, one could perhaps describe him as moderate and pragmatic Westernist – albeit one who is also a gosudarstvennik (someone who advocates for a strong sovereign State), in line with a certain Russian political tradition.

Sao Paulo University History Professor Angelo de Oliveira Segrillo, along these lines, has compared Putin to the French leader Charles de Gaulle, who often opposed both NATO and the US not out of a mere “anti-Western stance” but rather would do so out of being in the position of someone who is defending the national interests of its own country. In his interview with Tucker Carlson, Putin talks, for instance, about his conversations with then US President Bill Clinton on the topic of Russia joining NATO (to be clear: that would require a major reform within the organization) – something which of course never happened.

Be it as it may, with regards to the Ukrainian crisis, and the overall frictions between Russian and the West, the Russian stance is not simply due to the supposed personal inclinations of the President, whatever they are (as Western propaganda would have it). Whatever one’s opinions are on Moscow’s decision to launch its 2022 campaign in Ukraine which persists to this day, one must take into consideration the fact that, from Moscow’s point of view, the Kremlin has mostly taken a defensive and counter-offensive approach towards the American-led West over the latter’s many provocations and over many incidents which constituted crossing red lines, from a Russian perspective. In any case, as recently as late 2021, Russian and Germany were major energy partners, a partnership materialized through the (now gone) Nord Stream.

Much has been talked about BRICS structures replacing or antagonizing the IMF. It is more about providing further alternatives. It would be inaccurate to think of BRICS as necessarily a kind of anti-Western bloc. The emergence of BRICS + illustrates this quite clearly.

Despite being involved in its regional conflict with neighboring Ukraine (a confrontation which is also a Western proxy war), Russia has successfully resisted the temptations of a Western pushed cold war mentality and of alignmentism, and has instead invested on mutually beneficial bilateral relations with powers such as Pakistan and India, that on turn also pragmatically pursue their good ties with the West.

It is the Western European states and Washington which increasingly demand alignment. However, from Africa to Latin America and Saudi Arabia, the emerging polycentric world is increasingly framed in the language of multi-alignment and non-alignment – this being clearly a language which the West does not speak so well. Russian current dialogue with the IMF is yet another sign of such pragmatism.

Neither the Global South nor China or Russia are essentially “anti-Western”. It is the US-led West and Washington itself particularly who demand alignmentism, thereby alienating potential partners and allies. As I wrote recently, even within the trans-atlantic alliance, US relations with its European partners could be better described as colonial in nature.

Once again, Russia is not anti-Western. It is the US-led West that is opposed to any kind of multi-alignment or multipolarity. In a way, Washington places itself against the world. It is not a nice place to be.

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Phariah

let imf delay so in their next time they need to add former ukraine as part of russian economy.

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SnowDen

interesting how “analysis” are made. with somebody who has phd title lol. everybody knows that russia has 4,5 percent grow of gdp annualy but at the same time 15-30 percent inflation, regarding what do you want to put in the basket. if you put there anything related to western produced goods, it will be 100 percent easily. so yes, russian economy grows but if you adjust it to real consumer prices, it shrinks. everybody in russia knows that. even common people without phd.

SnowDen

to be fair, the russian economy did not shrink “catastrophically” as western think-tanks predicted, mainly because russia boosted trade with china and because russia circumvented the oil embargo with a “shadow” fleet of tankers. in any case, if you consider the catastrophic course of the “special operation”, including 300,000 dead russians and 300,000 sitting in trenches doing shit, the outlook for the russian economy is pretty bleak.

Last edited 13 days ago by SnowDen
SnowDen

“to add former ukraine as part of russian economy.” why on the earth would somebody like to put ukraine in their economy ? ukraine is a shithole, it is net loss, this country need endless investments, not mentioning astronomical debt which will never be repaid. ukraine is too expensive for free. the best usage for ukraine is to be used as a training ground for a nuclear war, which is precisely what will happen there.

Chernobyl

how is the 3 days war russian parrot ?

Clyde

how’s the hours-long ato, ukretard?

I Like Ike

doing much better than porkchops’ 2 day war

Conan M

where are the russian peoples on their leadership demanding to stay within this organization “the un just adopted the “pact for the future” which lays the foundation for a new “global order”” that refuses to memorialize their citizens for the sacrifices they’ve made in the defense of their nation the past 10 years….

Last edited 13 days ago by Conan M
Conan M

… yet still chooses to remain in it, even though it is hell bent on controlling it through it’s destruction by killing more of it’s citizens for the good of the “whole”… and their titular head more than willing to pay that price to remain in that cabal as he has been anointed a “king” as long as he remains and serves that “whole”???…

Last edited 13 days ago by Conan M
RL_Fedorov

i think that emerging economies in the g20 and the brics fear isolating themselves prematurely when brics is still working out its way to a sustainable future. putin just announced “work” on an alternative payment system to swift. keyword: “work”, it’s not ready. and there are many shifting geopolitical “realities” that are well… shifting. these tectonic plates have to settle before new ground is established, in my opinion.

Last edited 13 days ago by RL_Fedorov
RL_Fedorov

@conan m that said, there are countless publications all over the world that are calling for massive un reform and massive reform to many international governments bodies & institutions. which include a rebuke of the g7 and globalisation itself.

Last edited 13 days ago by RL_Fedorov
Conan M

after the events of 9/11 where no one in the unsc demanded an international investigation of the fact(s) that were not in the “9/11 commission report” that was 3 years late and that everyone knew by the then was seriously in question after the u.$. announced that iraq had nothing to do with 9/11… and because of that kind of failure in leadership i smell the next biggest one coming that will be blamed on either iran or russia that will happen in the west!….

Last edited 12 days ago by Conan M
Conan M

but then again, after this announcement last week… “lavrov reminded the world that russia is committed to ensuring i$rael’s security” and 10 years of ukraine’s decimation courtesty of the un/unsc i could very well be mistaken

Last edited 12 days ago by Conan M
Dstroj

poignant elucidation rl_f, time will reveal all…

Last edited 13 days ago by Dstroj
anon

russia is now the world’s 4th biggest economy, ahead of japan and germany.

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I Like Ike

and ukraine is the world’s biggest septic boil begging to be lanced.

Anonymous

last time russia was becoming great pre ww1 when it was poised to become the numero uno global economic and military superpower they made sure that didnt happen by entrapping it into ww1. americas still their poxy superpower its just the anerican dream that they want to turn into a nighmare. kings don’t like constitional monarchies. hate republics loathe democracy.

Антон

here is the data of imf on gdp ppp at worldeconomics.com in 2023 and 2024 (prognosis)

china: 39-40,9 trln

us: 26-26,9

india: 20,5-21,9

russia: 8-8,3

japan: 6,3-6,35

look at “economy quality” column, hypocrisy as is. china, russia, india – c, brazil – b, the main debtors in decline – a. vietnam with 1,9-2 has e grade. ha-ha-ha!

Last edited 12 days ago by Антон
Anonymous

nothings what it seems. nothing in public means jack.you ought to have learned that much by now.. ffs

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Brian Seawave

hello sf, i’m a horseheaded freak from north america. my parents paid to change my surname at birth. i strive to be a trigender freak of the eighth quasi dimension so that i can fit in with other idiots in my neighborhood.

please support me on my “go fund a zionist idiot page”.

thank yall.

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Anononimitypeace

talk about brics, hehehe, it is a useless group of disjointed nations spread around the world without any unity or agreement. there are even disputes between the nations themselves. to think that this group of poor subservient nations to tbe europeans and us military might and monetary systems could have any influence is laughable.

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mother of all foabs

“talk about brics, hehehe”

pathetic attempt ass eyed weirdo. paid to be stupid much these days?

K. Lewis

the bric’s combined economic gdp already surpassed the g7. “there are even disputes between the nations themselves” what a decerebrate. if anything is laughable— it’s your infantile take.

Kibosh

brics countries are already trading in domestic currenciesimqpp9

Антон

after meeting in kazan’ in october the club may announce about new international currency or system for international trading avoiding toxic currencies such as euro, dollar, yen, pound, swiss frank. trading without dollar is like aspen stake in the hart of a vampire. no % from every deal, no gains from insurance, no information about trading used for putting embargo, no need to obey to dollar emission center.

AM Hants

riddle me this, but, how many nuclear nations are members of brics? russia (nuclear triad super power with space programme), china (nuclear triad nation with space programme), india, who also has a space programme. riddle me this, how many brics nations (brazil, russia, india, china, south africa) have vast amounts of currency reserves, that the planet needs?

AM Hants

2) riddle me this, how many brics nations have the largest militaries in the world? riddle me this, how many brics nations have the largest economies in the world and that is before you get down to the populations of the members. how much ppi value do those disjointed brics nations have, compared to the g7 nations?

AM Hants

sorry currency reserves should be natural reserves.

Kibosh

imf is a yanky zionist construct, boycott it, it’s basically a lobbyist for counterfieting cartels…put more countries in debt than you can shake a stick at…

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mother of all foabs

true kb, +

Anonymous

look you half witted dead hits there’s been one real war. emperors trump kings. they dance etween the two both two raced backstabbing megalomaniacal narcissistic psychopaths for global. domination that’s all wake up. .

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Anonymous

they re users. right now they’re using the nazi third empire again. to hide behind to entrap and set up again. same old. and the egotistical dumbarses are suckers for it again. repeat take 3

gestapo mctaco

shift change for fugly zionist freak. look in the mirror retard. do u see a sad horseheaded idiot?

Jull

what west says has zero meaning. russia can print own money as was done in the west 50sto 80s. russia has to clean traitors in russian banking system and manage itself the money circulating in russia

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Gerome

pff , as if russia would need the imf in any way ,lol. first, it’s the other way around, and secondly – the imf is losing its significance

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Gerome

dollar? what is it

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Anonymousepeaceful

its the world reserve currency which is what all countries need to trade. even russia desires those dollars and euros to get paid and settle debts.

Field Philosopher

i am russian and i sell most of my products in ¥ (yuan) or crypto, so stop saying bs

Last edited 13 days ago by Field Philosopher
the cohen r khan

imf should just deal direct with the chabad in russia rabbi khazhar name stealers identity thieves blood lickers will get a good deal dealing direct rabbi money changer to rabbi money changer

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hasbarats

another american scam is nominal gdp figures. they are denominated in american dollars, how conveneint. it makes the american economy look good. if you count gdp by purchasing power parity, the figures look much different. and the us economy is no longer first place.

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Антон

really useful for manipulation. but even imf and wb prefer to use gdp ppp for total volume of gdp. in 2020 imf and wb shows gpp ppp of russia ~4 trillion, in 2023 ~8 trillion. there was no such outstanding boost, thus calculation method of imf and wb was crap at least in 2020 or crap even now, when they are trying to describe how 1-2% of world’s economy (how they portrayed russia for long time) is able to resist aggression of ~50 “best” countries.

kotromanic

the imf exists to serve us interests why cooperate with them in any way?

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