UPDATE: Moscow says doesn’t support IMF tranche to Kiev

(Provides new headline, lede, adds second, last paragraphs)

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON, Sep 15 (PRIME) -- Moscow does not support the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) decision to provide the next tranche of financial aid to Ukraine, the Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday.

“We do not support such decision, we are against,” he said.

The IMF said Wednesday that its executive board had approved providing a U.S. $1 billion tranche of financial aid to Ukraine.

On Monday, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Moscow would vote against the new tranche of financial aid to Ukraine. The IMF financial assistance program for Ukraine should have included Ukraine’s repayment of a $3 billion debt to Russia, but this was not done, Siluanov said then.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said after the board meeting that “Ukraine is showing welcome signs of recovery, notwithstanding a difficult external environment and a severe economic crisis.”

The four-year financial assistance program for Ukraine encompasses allocation of a total of $17.5 billion. In March 2015, the first, $5 billion tranche was allocated, and the second, $1.7 billion tranche was provided in August of that year.

Alexei Mozhin, IMF executive director for Russia, told PRIME that only Moscow voted against the allocation of the $1 billion tranche to Ukraine.

Sergei Kalashnikov, first deputy head of the Federation Council’s economic committee, said that the allocation of the IMF tranche to Ukraine will complicate Kiev’s debt repayment to Russia.

End