Ukraine’s supporters say it’s proof that the body is “fractured” and unable to react to global crises.
“Like all multilateral organizations in this day and age, the FATF is fractured in matters of geopolitics,” said Tom Keatinge, the director of the center for finance and security at the Royal United Services Institute.
“If international bodies like the U.N. and the FATF won’t take action then the U.S., EU and other countries that reject the sort of illegal action taken by Russia will need to press much harder with sanctions. It’s time to take the gloves off,” Keatinge added.
Nicki Kenyon, a former senior intelligence officer at the United States Treasury Department who currently works at the Institute for Financial Integrity in Washington, D.C. also questioned Russia’s exclusion from the list.
“FATF’s mission is to protect the global financial system. And there is an enormous amount of evidence that Russia is actually undermining those efforts, and undermining the integrity of the global financial system,” she said.
FATF did not respond to a request for comment.
