Russian board member suspended from dean role over Ukraine war: IMF

The International Monetary Fund's executive board has temporarily suspended the largely ceremonial role of dean, held by Russian executive director Aleksei Mozhin, due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, an IMF spokesman said on Thursday.

The position has been traditionally granted to the longest-serving member of the IMF executive board and carries little power.

The move was one easily achievable way for Western democracies who hold a majority of the IMF's voting power to censure Russia at the Fund.

Some European Union officials are examining ways to curb Russia's influence at the global crisis lender, which the Soviet Union helped create but never joined after World War Two. Both Russia and Ukraine joined the IMF in 1992, a year after the Soviet Union collapsed.

"The Executive Board of the IMF has decided to temporarily suspend the role of dean of the board given Russia's role in the ongoing war in Ukraine and its potential impact on the ability of the executive director for Russia to carry out this task effectively," IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said.

Kyiv and its Western allies believe Russia invaded Ukraine to subjugate a neighbour Russian President Vladimir Putin calls an artificial state. Moscow says it is carrying out a "special operation" to disarm and "denazify" Ukraine.

Rice clarified that the suspension did not affect Mozhin's ability to represent Russia in the IMF executive board decisions, which would continue. Mozhin first became Russia's IMF alternate director in 1992 and took over as executive director in 1996.

Rice also told the news conference that the IMF was exploring the creation of an IMF-administered account for donor countries to channel resources to Ukraine, including some of the $650 billion in IMF Special Drawing Rights currency reserves distributed last year.

But he did not provide details on timing for when it may be ready to accept contributions.

"We have used these accounts before," Rice said. "It's something that we have done with single or multi donor participation to channel financial resources to countries in need," he added.