Official statement by the Federal Financial Monitoring Service regarding media reports on Russia’s possible blacklisting by the FATF
Regarding the reports made by a number of media outlets about Russia’s possible blacklisting by the Financial Action Task Force (the FATF), Rosfinmonitoring highlights the fact that the Russian anti-money laundering system continues to be compliant with the international standards. This fact was confirmed both by the FATF evaluation in 2019 and the evaluation carried out by international experts last year.
Russia was upgraded on three of the FATF recommendations, and downgraded to Partially Compliant on one (due to insufficient legislative regulation of virtual currencies’ circulation). It should be noted here that the Russian Federation has adopted two federal laws regulating the circulation of digital currencies ever since. The assessments did not identify any strategic shortcomings of the anti-money laundering system and these are exactly what would warrant Russia’s inclusion in the FATF’s "black list".
We would like to add that Russia fulfills in good faith its obligations to cooperate in countering the financing of terrorism, which was also noted by the UN International Court of Justice in the Ukraine v. Russia case.
We emphasize that irrespective of the decision of the upcoming FATF plenary to be held on October 21-25, the Russian anti-money laundering system will continue to effectively work and interact with jurisdictions interested in ensuring financial security.
