Politico has learned that the European Commission has added Russia to its money laundering blacklist.

The European Commission, bypassing the FATF, has added Russia to its blacklist of countries with a high risk of money laundering, Politico has learned. The registry has not yet been officially updated. This will lead to enhanced scrutiny of all transactions.

The European Commission has added Russia to its blacklist of countries with a high risk of money laundering and terrorist financing, Politico reports, citing a document described as an appendix to the existing list. The list on the EC's website hasn't been updated since August, and Russia is missing from it .

The European Commission's list typically mirrors that of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). In 2023, it suspended Russia's membership but did not add the country to the grey or black lists, despite Ukraine's insistence. China , India, Saudi Arabia , and South Africa opposed the move . Now, the European Commission has decided to add Russia to the blacklist, regardless of the FATF's position.

The measure will require financial institutions to strengthen due diligence on all transactions and will force banks that have not yet taken action against Russia to take additional risk mitigation measures.

In June, the Financial Times reported that the European Union was considering adding Russia to its grey list of countries with weak money laundering controls as part of its plan to increase financial pressure on Moscow. European Commission representatives noted at the time that they were exploring this possibility, and a majority of members of the European Parliament supported the idea.

The blacklist includes countries "with serious strategic deficiencies" in combating money laundering and terrorist financing and is assigned a high risk level. The FATF grey list is a list of jurisdictions with weak anti-money laundering regimes, but these countries are "actively cooperating with the FATF" to address these deficiencies.

The FATF blacklist also includes North Korea, Iran, and Myanmar. The grey list includes 21 countries, including Bulgaria, Yemen, Mali, Syria, the Philippines, Monaco, and others.

In October 2024, Rosfinmonitoring reported that Russia was conscientiously fulfilling its obligations in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.

That same year, Russia's rating was downgraded to "partial compliance" for only one of the FATF recommendations. Rosfinmonitoring attributed this to "insufficient legislative regulation of the circulation of virtual currencies." The agency emphasized that since then, Russia has adopted two federal laws regulating the circulation of digital currencies.

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