The International Monetary Fund has postponed its planned consultation mission with Russia indefinitely because of technical issues, TASS agency cited Alexei Mozhin, Russia’s director at the IMF, as saying on Wednesday.

“The Fund’s management notified the Russian side and the board of directors that the mission’s work would be postponed indefinitely,” Mozhin said.

“Technical unpreparedness of the mission to conduct consultations was mentioned as the reason for postponing the mission.”

The IMF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ukraine and its Western allies had objected to the mission to Russia on grounds that it would show relations with Russia to have been normalised despite the invasion and occupation of vast tracts of Ukrainian territory.

The IMF’s decision was communicated on Monday, the day the mission had intended to begin online consultations.

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These were to have been followed by an IMF delegation visit to Moscow for meetings with Russian officials.

It would have meant the IMF becoming the first major international financial body to send its official mission to Russia since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Mozhin said the Russian side was “well aware” that many European countries “had spoken out about the unacceptability of the resumption of cooperation between the IMF and Russia and the unacceptability of conducting such consultations”.

Preparations for conducting the consultations at issue had taken place more than a year ago and Russia, while never requesting a mission, was prepared to receive one as part of its obligations under IMF rules, Mozhin said.

“The Russian side hereby again confirms its preparedness,” he added. The IMF’s last annual mission visited Russia in November 2019, before the start of the COVID pandemic.

There have been no IMF missions to Russia since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine.