An adviser to the governor of the Bank of Russia has been tapped to represent her country on the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) executive board, even as she is under US sanctions.
 
Ksenia Yudaeva, former first deputy governor at Russia’s central bank and a current adviser to governor Elvira Nabiullina, was nominated to be an executive director at the Washington-based fund, according to two people close to the Russian government. Her candidacy was put forward by Russia’s Finance Ministry and supported by the government, the Interfax news service reported earlier. 

The US sanctioned Yudaeva in April 2022, two months after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As a result, she may perform her role from Russia, one of the people familiar said.

Yudaeva joined the central bank together with Nabiullina in 2013. For more than a year prior to that, she headed the Russian Presidential Experts’ Directorate and also served as a so-called sherpa to the Group of 20 nations. 

Yudaeva, who received her doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was Nabiullina’s main ally in transitioning the Russian rouble to a free float in 2014. She left her post as first deputy governor at the central bank in August 2023, but remained as an adviser to Nabiullina. 

Representatives for the central bank and the Russian government didn’t immediately respond to questions from Bloomberg News. The IMF also didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Russia hasn’t applied for any IMF loan since 2000, and repaid all its outstanding obligations to the fund as of January 2005.

Alexey Mozhin has been Russia’s permanent representative to the IMF since the 1990s. Starting in 2014, Mozhin was made dean of the IMF’s executive board as its longest-serving member, though the fund temporarily suspended that role, which was largely symbolic, over the war. 

Mozhin said in an interview with the RIA Novosti news service in May that Russia does not need money from the IMF, but remaining in the fund supports non-Western countries. 

Currently, the executive board is comprised of 24 seats elected by member countries or groups of countries, though the distribution of votes is at least in part determined by a nation’s share of funding it provides. 

  - Bloomberg