WASHINGTON, February 25. /TASS/. The decision of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) to suspend Russia's membership in the organization is a dangerous step that could lead to the destruction of the global architecture for countering the financing of terrorism. Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said this on Friday commenting on the reaction of US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to this decision.

"The Secretary of the Treasury is apparently rubbing her hands at the implementation of a frankly politicized initiative within the framework of a purely technical, by its mandate, multilateral forum. All of it looks unprofessional and irresponsible The US administration refuses to understand that the suspension of Russia's participation in the FATF is a dangerous step that actually leads to the erosion of the global architecture to combat money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," Antonov said as quoted by the embassy’s press service.

As the Ambassador stressed, "it turns out that any member of the FATF, for the sake of Washington's opportunistic needs, can be "squeezed" out of the Organization and deprived of the opportunity to make a useful contribution to collective efforts to ensure international security."

"Russia for 20 years of membership in the group has done a lot to promote effective standards in the field of combating criminal proceeds. The United States is well aware of it as well as of the fact that we have created one of the most advanced national "anti-money laundering" systems. The FATF’s Mutual Evaluation Review proved this in 2019. The US experts who were part of it can confirm this fact," the head of the diplomatic mission said.

"It is obvious to the international community that Washington is ready to sacrifice the well-being and stability of humanity in order to trivially and frenziedly settle an old score with Russia," the diplomat concluded.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) suspended Russia’s membership over Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine, the group said in a statement on Friday. However, the FATF added that Russia remained the group’s member. "The Russian Federation remains accountable for its obligation to implement the FATF Standards. The Russian Federation must continue to meet its financial obligations," the FATF said.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service stated that the FATF’s move was groundless and went beyond the group’s mandate.

FATF is an intergovernmental organization that develops global standards for combating money laundering and terrorist financing, and also assesses the compliance of national systems with these standards. It was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Paris.