Yesterday at 19:23
April 20, a meeting of the G7 financial bloc was held as part of the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings. Minister of Finance of Ukraine Sergii Marchenko gave a speech at the meeting. In particular, he called to increase financial support to Ukraine, strengthen sanctions against Russia, and stop buying Russian energy resources.
After the meeting, representatives of the G7 financial bloc issued a joint statement on Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The key points from the statement:
The international organisations and multilateral fora should no longer conduct their activities with Russia in a business-as-usual manner. The G7 regret participation by Russia in international fora, including G20, International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings this week.
All countries and international organisations should join G7 efforts to ensure adequate support for Ukraine in meeting its immediate needs and rebuilding its future. G7 welcome the establishment of the International Monetary Fund’s Multi-Donor Administered Account for Ukraine and the European Union announcement to develop a Ukraine Solidarity Trust Fund.
The G7 support the World Bank Group ́s support package for Ukraine and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development ́s Resilience Package.
The G7 will continue to work closely to monitor the effects of the sanctions and prevent any attempts to evade, circumvent or backfill sanctions.
The G7 is strongly committed to not conducting government-to-government financial transactions with Russia, including voluntary trading in Special Drawing Rights, and call upon other countries to join them in further limiting Russia’s ability to finance its unprovoked and unjustifiable war of choice against Ukraine. Russia must not obtain financing from international financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The decision by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to suspend the access by Russia and Belarus to its resources is welcomed.
The G7 strongly condemns Russia’s unprovoked and unjustifiable war of aggression against Ukraine, which is a blatant violation of the fundamental principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and international peace and security. This condemnation is shared by 141 countries at the United Nations and was emphasized by most G20 members.
Russia’s ruthless actions are causing substantial increases in commodity and food prices and are disrupting the global economy more broadly at a time when we were already facing the challenges of an uneven recovery, elevated levels of inflation and reduced policy space. The war is directly undermining Ukraine ́s economy and ability to export, in particular agricultural products, is disrupting key supply chains and transport links and is impeding Russia ́s own exports. The longer Russia and those enabling Russia allow the aggression to continue, the higher the global economic cost will be.
