Artillery units of Russia-Belarus regional group of forces go on combat alert

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko ©Peter Kovalev/TASS

Artillery units of the Belarusian mechanized brigade assumed combat duty as part of interoperability measures within the Russia-Belarus regional group of forces, the republic’s Defense Ministry announced on Friday.

"Today, as part of joint unit cohesion measures for the Belarus-Russia regional group of forces, artillery units of the 11th separate mechanized brigade have been readied for accomplishing assigned missions," the ministry said in a statement.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced on October 10, 2022 that Belarus and Russia had begun deploying a regional group of forces mostly comprised of the Belarusian military personnel. As the Belarusian leader pointed out, the decision to deploy the joint group of forces had been made during talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and was prompted by the escalation on the western borders of the Belarus-Russia Union State.

The Belarusian Defense Ministry announced on October 15 about the arrival of the first military trains with Russian troops in the republic. As the ministry specified, the Russian military contingent in the joint regional group of forces would total about 9,000 personnel and there were plans to deploy about 170 tanks, as many as 200 armored combat vehicles and 100 artillery guns and mortars to Belarus from Russia.

President Putin announced on December 19 following the talks with his Belarusian counterpart Lukashenko in the capital of Belarus that Moscow and Minsk would continue the practice of joint drills and other combat training measures, including as part of the joint group of forces.

The Belarusian Defense Ministry reported in early January that measures continued to beef up the regional group of forces and the designated troops were ready for accomplishing the objectives of defending the Belarus-Russia Union State.

Ukrainian invasion of Belarus or Russia would trigger collective response, diplomat warns

The use of force by Kiev against Russia or Belarus or a Ukrainian invasion of either of the two Union countries would be enough to trigger a collective response, a senior Russian diplomat told TASS.

Commenting on potential scenarios of having Belarus involved in the conflict in Ukraine, Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second CIS Department Alexey Polishchuk referred to the latest military doctrine of the Union State under which the use of force against either of the two Union members would be viewed as an attack on the entire Union State and said there were similar commitments on mutual support in the event of any foreign aggression against the CSTO.

"In other words, from a legal perspective, any use of force by the Kiev regime or a Ukrainian military invasion of either Belarus or Russia would be enough to trigger a collective response," Polishchuk stressed. "However, it would be up to the two countries’ political and military leadership to decide whether to respond and in what way. The advisability of the use of the Union forces and the adequacy of a joint response to the threats posed in a specific situation will be key," he assured.

According to Polishchuk, apart from taking part in a military operation, other formats of support within the Union exist, primarily military and technical cooperation which, he said, was the most advanced between Moscow and Minsk.

"Our countries supply weapons and components for the production of military hardware to each other, cooperate in border protection issues, and enhance the combat capability of the common Russian-Belarusian air defense system. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has repeatedly warned his country would retaliate in the event of a Ukrainian attack on Belarus or any other provocation. The republic has the sovereign right to defend its territory through all means available and Minsk can count on Russia’s full support here," the diplomat explained.

Ukrainian security forces conduct drills near Belarusian border

Ukrainian security forces conducted drills in the Rovno Region along the border with Belarus, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said in a statement on Telegram on Friday. "The Security Service carried out large-scale counter-sabotage drills in the border areas of the Rovno Region. Defense forces practiced ways to neutralize enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups, which, according to the exercise script, tried to break through the northern border," the statement reads.

According to the SBU, one of the groups attempted to break into a city, while another one took the head and the chief engineer of an energy facility hostage together with their families. "Using psychological pressure and death threats, the perpetrators sought to force the victims to collaborate with them," the SBU said.

The drills involved units from the SBU, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Police, the State Emergency Service and the National Guard, as well as government and local officials. "Participants in the training comprehensively practiced ways to ensure interagency interaction to prevent potential sabotage threats in the border regions of northwestern Ukraine," the SBU stated.

Ukrainian Ambassador to the United Kingdom Vadim Pristaiko said on Thursday that Kiev was being forced to redeploy some troops from the line of contact in Donbass to the Belarusian border for fear of an attack.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko pointed out in early October that Ukraine had deployed as many as 15,000 troops to the border area. Chairman of the Belarusian State Border Guard Committee Anatoly Lappo said in mid-November that Ukrainian security forces had blown up "actually all the bridges in the Gomel and Mozyr areas," and "are starting to blow up all the bridges in the Volyn direction." The State Border Committee announced earlier that it had reinforced its border guard units, stepped up the use of technical means of protection and engaged maneuverable territorial border guard squads.

Expert says more dead mercenaries could be found in Soledar

Russian MoD Announces Liberation of Soledar

Soledar REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne Soledar
©REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

The incident with a dead British mercenary, who was involved in combat operations in Soledar is not unique, a large number of mercenaries is stationed in this direction, military and political expert Yan Gagin told TASS.

On Wednesday, the press service of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner private military company, reported that one of the missing British citizens in Soledar was found dead. Earlier, the Ukrainian National Police reported that two British mercenaries, Christopher Perry, 28, and Andrew Bagshaw, 48, were last seen on January 6. The UK nationals left Kramatorsk and went to Soledar, then communication with them was lost.

At the moment, the fate of the second UK citizen is unknown. According to the British media, they were part of a non-governmental organization that was helping to evacuate civilians.

"The case of that mercenary is most likely not an isolated one. Quite a number of mercenaries fought on the side of the Ukrainian armed forces, including in Soledar," he said. "And we will still find their bodies in Soledar and around its environs. We might take in some people who are alive, among those who will be taken prisoner. A mop-up is in progress."

According to him, in such situations, it is difficult to establish the rank of a mercenary, because "most often they have no documents confirming their affiliation with the regular army of any country."

Russian MoD Announces Liberation of Soledar

The strategic town, situated in the Donetsk People's Republic's northeast, has witnessed heavy fighting in recent months. The Soledar Salt Mine - opened in the 19th century and featuring a vast 201 km network of tunnels dug up to 288 meters underground, is the largest salt mine in Europe.

Russia's Ministry of Defense has announced the complete liberation of the town of Soledar, saying the capture of the strategic settlement will make it possible to cut off supply routes used by Ukrainian forces in nearby Artemovsk (renamed Bakhmut by Ukraine's post-coup government in 2016).

According to the MoD's figures, over 700 Ukrainian troops were killed and 300 pieces of weaponry, including three planes and a helicopter, were destroyed in fighting for Soledar over the past three days. Russian air defenses also reportedly shot down nine HIMARS rockets, Olha and Uragan rockets and shells.

"The liberation of the settlement of Soledar, important for the continuation of successful offensive operations in the Donetsk region, was completed on the evening of January 12," MoD spokesman Igor Konashenkov said at a briefing on Friday.

The Russian military said the capture of Soledar was made possible thanks to constant strikes by army aviation, rocket and artillery units, pinning down Ukrainian forces and preventing the transfer of reserves, the delivery of ammunition, and blocking attempts to withdraw to new defensive lines. At the same time, Konashenkov said Russian Airborne Forces occupied dominant heights and blockaded the town from the north and south.

According to Konashenkov, the liberation of Soledar will allow Russian forces to block Ukrainian forces in the region and pocket them in a cauldron.

The first days of 2023 witnessed heavy fighting for Soledar between Russian and Ukrainian forces, with DPR head Denis Pushilin announcing Tuesday that the city center was under the control of the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company.

DPR lawmaker Vladislav Berdichevsky told Sputnik Thursday that the victory at Soledar opened the door for the liberation of the remainder of the Donbass, and that the battle for the town itself had created a mini-cauldron containing Ukrainian troops and foreign mercenaries.

Nebenzia: West 'Real Source' of Ukraine Crisis, Its Narrative Against Russia Hypocritical

©AP Photo / Mary Altaffer

The collective West is the real source behind the crisis in Ukraine and its narrative blaming Russia for creating threats to international peace is hypocritical because it ignores the West's egregious violations of international law, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzia said on Thursday.

"International law was repeatedly floated and harmed, well before that, and not by Russia," Nebenzia said during an UN Security Council open debate on the rule of law.

"Let us take some of these examples, the real source of the Ukraine crisis, the hypocrisy of the West and its absolute unwillingness to address the other’s interests."

The collective West has been pushing the narrative that Russia is responsible for threats to international peace and security while ignoring its own egregious violations of international law, Nebenzia said.

The Russian ambassador pointed out that the current crisis goes back to the United States' desire to play the role of a global policeman, which Washington unilaterally took upon itself.

Russia believes that international law was dealt a "fatal blow" when European countries trampled on the guarantees made to the democratically-elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was stripped of his post in violation of the then constitution, he said.

Nebenzia also listed various instances where the collective West failed to uphold international law and was never held accountable for violating the rule of law such as in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Ukraine.

"If Washington or its allies need to invade somewhere or bomb somewhere, it suffices to declare that there are terrorists there," Nebenzia added.

Nebenzia earlier blasted calls to launch a tribunal to investigate Russia's alleged aggression against Ukraine, underscoring the such an initiative would be "ridiculous" and a complete waste of time.

The Connections Between Capitalism, Coronavirus, and War

Biden Doc Scandal Demonstrates Double Standard, Japan and US Agree To More Military Cooperation, Environment Activists Killed In Honduras In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman discuss the ongoing saga surrounding sensitive and classified documents found at Joe Biden’s home and other sites associated with him, the corporate media’s attempts to differentiate this incident from the finding of documents at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, how these incidents demonstrate how the two parties operate in similar ways, and the double standard that Biden and Trump are being judged by in comparison to the treatment that anyone else would receive if they were found with documents.

In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by K.J. Noh, a scholar, educator and journalist focusing on the political economy and geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific. He’s also a member of Veterans for Peace, and senior correspondent with Flashpoints on KPFA to discuss discussions between the US and Japan on military cooperation against China, the changes being made to a marine regiment on the island of Okinawa and how that relates to the US occupation of the island, how Japan’s rearmament and cooperation with the west against China will affect the geopolitics of east Asia, and how this fits into the broader global trend toward multipolarity.

In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Annie Bird, Director of the Rights and Ecology Program at the Center for Political Ecology to discuss the recent killing of two environmental activists in Honduras, the mining project that the activists were campaigning against and why the company behind it might have been involved in their killings, the recent history of killings of environmental activists in Honduras following the 2009 coup.

Later in the show, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Dr. Radhika Desai, a Professor at the University of Manitoba, Director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, and author of Capitalism, Coronavirus and War:

A Geopolitical Economy to discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic and how the neoliberal response to it in the US and other capitalist countries demonstrated the brutality of capitalism, how that response actually weakened the economies of capitalist countries while socialist China’s economy continued to grow while saving lives, how the pandemic contributed in part to the global trend to multipolarity and how that was accelerated by the proxy conflict in Ukraine.

For many years capital has been accumulating faster than there could be found an outlet for it. For a time a partial easing of the sit nation was obtained by conquest and colonization; but that has reached its limit and capital is still accumulating with no opportunity of investment.

This, to the syndicated interests, is an intolerable situation and one which must be met no matter at what cost of life and property to the present generation, or at what cost of privation and misery to posterity.

Since practically the whole earth has been exploited and as yet no way has been found of reaching the other planets in this solar system, there remains but one way to create new fields for capitalism, and that is to destroy and lay waste all, or as much of the products of labor as is necessary to accomplish this object.

As the quickest way to do this is through war, and a world-wide war, capitalism easily finds a way to bring it about, and the European nations are now engaged in a titanic struggle to destroy the products of the workers and lay waste the lands which they struggled for years to make productive. Into this carnival of murder and destruction the whole world will eventually be precipitated, and all for the purpose of advancing organized oppression for the advantage of a privileged minority.

And the book entitled 'Capitalism, Coronavirus, and War' by Radhika Desai is a book that forms another awareness, namely, aims to cover up the truth of the corona virus. The book makes the connection between modern life and increasing knowledge about health. Increasing economic growth, technology, making life more prosperous and awareness of healthy living getting higher, followed by social inequality, have encouraged the growth of various diseases including the emergence of the deadly corona virus.

And the book entitled 'Capitalism, Coronavirus, and War' is further a trigger for western countries in group 7. Because it explicitly explains that the corona virus occurs naturally, not engineered for lethal purposes, namely biological weapons.

As chemists, physicists, mathematicians, biologists, microorganisms, programmers, Gekami is familiar with various types of viruses, including the SarCov2 virus. In this world there is no type of dangerous virus since the beginning of the creation of this world and the creatures in it until the end of the world unless it is engineered.

Twitter Files: US Government, Media Peddled Russia Bot Hoax Despite Pushback From Platform

©AMY OSBORNE

US government officials and media outlets promoted conspiracies about Russian bot activity on Twitter despite pushback and evidence to the contrary from the social media company, reporter Matt Taibbi said on Thursday in the latest release of the so-called Twitter Files.

In January 2018, Twitter users began posting the hashtag "ReleaseTheMemo" in support of the declassification of a memorandum by then-Congressman Devin Nunes, which detailed flaws in the FBI’s investigation of alleged collusion between former President Donald Trump and Russia.

In response, Democrats denounced the memorandum, claiming it was boosted by Russian "bots" and not an organic social media movement, even after Twitter informed the lawmakers that they found no signs that the movement was affiliated with Russia.

"Twitter warned politicians and media they not only lacked evidence, but had evidence the accounts weren’t Russian – and were roundly ignored," Taibbi said. "Execs eventually grew frustrated over what they saw as a circular process – presented with claims of Russian activity, even when denied, led to more claims."

Nevertheless, Twitter went on to follow a pattern of not challenging the claims regarding Russia on the record, Taibbi said. Consequently, a number of US media outlets continued to push the Russian bots narrative despite a lack of evidence, Taibbi added.

The lawmakers contributed to one of the "greatest outbreaks of mass delusion in US history" by spreading the Russian collusion hoax and attempting to discredit Nunes’ memorandum, the congressman said in a statement. The contents of Nunes’ memorandum were verified in a December 2019 report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. The Twitter Files are based on internal information and released in coordination with Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who committed to reforming the social media company after acquiring it last year.

House Oversight’s New GOP Chair Asks Treasury, Twitter for Files on Hunter Biden Business Deals

The promised Republican investigation of Hunter Biden, the businessman son of US President Joe Biden, has taken an early step on Wednesday, as House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer (R-KY) sent out his first requests for files on Hunter Biden’s business dealings from the US Treasury and from social media giant Twitter.

© Sputnik Screenshot

Comer sent letters to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and to several prominent Twitter figures, including former Twitter deputy general counsel James Baker; Twitter’s former global head of trust and safety Yoel Roth; and Twitter’s former chief legal officer, Vijaya Gadde.

According to reports in US media, Comer is specifically looking into Twitter’s decision in the fall of 2020 to block users from sharing certain articles about Hunter Biden’s business dealings that stemmed from the so-called “laptop from Hell” that the businessman had seemingly abandoned at a Delaware repair shop.

After Elon Musk took over Twitter in October 2021, he gave several journalists access to detailed reports and communications concerning the effort, revealing close coordination between Democrats, the Democrat-controlled Executive Branch, and Twitter’s internal policymakers.

“For years, the Biden family peddled influence and access around the world for profit, often at the expense of our nation's interests. The American people must know the extent of Joe Biden's involvement in his family's shady business deals and if these deals threaten national security and his decision-making as president,” Comer told reporters on Wednesday.

Republicans have fumed for years over the seemingly endless stream of dirt on Hunter Biden, including attempts by then-US President Donald Trump to pressure the Ukrainian government to reopen a 2015 probe into Burisma, a gas company doing business in Ukraine on the board of which Hunter Biden sat. Trump failed in that endeavor, and Democrats impeached him on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, of which he was easily acquitted in a 2020 Senate trial.

Democrats have dismissed the claims as nonsensical and the news about Hunter Biden as salacious and mischaracterized.

In his letter to Yellen, Comer said the Oversight Committee was “investigating President Biden’s knowledge of and role in these schemes to assess whether he has compromised our national security at the expense of the American people. Additionally, we will examine drafting legislation to strengthen federal ethics laws regarding employees and their families. We will also examine and make recommendations regarding federal laws and regulations to ensure that financial institutions have the proper internal controls and compliance programs to alert federal agencies of potential money laundering activity.”

Comer’s request is a follow-up to his attempt last year to obtain the Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) by US banks associated with Hunter Biden as well as other associates of the Biden family, including the president’s brother, James Biden. The Treasury refused to give Comer the documents, saying it would only respond to a request by a committee chair - a position to which Comer rose after Republicans emerged triumphant in the House in the November 2022 elections.

The probe is just one of several promised by Republicans if they retook either chamber of Congress in the November 2022 elections. While their anticipated “red wave” of sweeping victories failed to materialize, they did gain a slim majority in the US House of Representatives - enough to win a Republican House Speaker and set their agenda in motion in the various committees

Maduro Blasts ‘Ridiculous’ UK Move to Extend Recognition of Long-Expired 2015 Assembly

©AP Photo / Matias Delacroix

Venezuela’s government orders arrests of 3 exiled former lawmakers in renewed efforts to unseat Nicolás Maduro

Venezuela’s socialist government has ordered the arrest of three exiled former lawmakers at the forefront of renewed efforts to unseat President Nicolás Maduro.

Dinorah Figuera leads an a ll-female team selected last week by fellow opposition politicians to lead the National Assembly that was voted into office in 2015. The opposition-controlled assembly is widely considered the South American nation’s last democratically elected institution, and although its five year mandate ended in late 2020, it continues to function as a symbolic shadow to Maduro’s rubber-stamping National Assembly.

On Monday, Maduro’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced that prosecutors had ordered the arrest of Figuera and her two deputies on charges of treason, money laundering and impersonating public officials.

However, the arrest order is unlikely to be carried out. All three women, like many of Maduro’s opponents, have fled Venezuela in recent years, fearing retaliation. Figuera, a surgeon by training, lives in Spain.

In January 2019, the National Assembly voted to stop recognizing Maduro as president after several top opponents were barred from running against him. It then appointed Juan Guaidó to be the nation’s “interim president,” in accordance with the order of succession outlined in Venezuela’s constitution. More than 60 countries quickly recognized him as Venezuela’s legitimate leader

Figuera was previously an unknown backbench lawmaker elected alongside Guaidó. She surged to the front of the opposition’s efforts to unseat Maduro as part of an internal putsch against the beleaguered Guaidó, whose failure to shake Maduro’s grip on power has frustrated many Venezuelans.

Maduro ally Jorge Rodríguez, the head of the pro-government National Assembly, celebrated the announcement of the arrest orders, calling the 2015 National Assembly a “band of thieves” for their attempts to win control of Venezuela’s extensive overseas oil assets, including Houston-based refinery Citgo.

Now approaching a decade in power with continued backing from Russia, China, Cuba and Iran, Maduro looks stronger than ever as he approaches the next presidential election, scheduled for 2024.

Venezuela’s leader derided the former legislative body — and the British insistence on continuing to recognize it — as components of a continuing campaign of “political, economic, financial, energy, and diplomatic aggression.”

Maduro Blasts ‘Ridiculous’ UK Move to Extend Recognition of Long-Expired 2015 Assembly

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is slamming Whitehall for its “laughable” claim that the National Assembly, which was elected in 2015, is the Caribbean country’s only legitimate institution.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is slamming Whitehall for its “laughable” claim that the National Assembly, which was elected in 2015, is the Caribbean country’s only legitimate institution.

“It is laughable and ridiculous that at this point, they still resort to this farce and falsehood,” Maduro said Thursday in his annual message to the Venezuelan legislature.

Earlier on Thursday, Britain’s Foreign Office issued a statement reiterating it continues to “consider the National Assembly elected in 2015 as the last democratically elected National Assembly in Venezuela” after that group voted to dissolve the supposed ‘interim presidency’ of Venezuelan opposition figure Juan Guaido.

“The UK continues not to accept the legitimacy of the administration put in place by Nicolás Maduro,” it wrote.

Maduro dismissed that 2015 legislature – whose five-year mandate to legislate legally expired in 2020 – as little more than a cat’s paw in a Western-backed plot to “recolonize Venezuela.”

“The only exclusive and determining legislative body is the National Assembly elected by the people in 2020,” Maduro noted.

“Everything else is a farce mounted as part of a political, economic, financial, energy, and diplomatic aggression,” Maduro told lawmakers Thursday.

“We have been able to confront it and in 2023, we will have defeated it.”

London’s refusal to recognize the Venezuelan government could impact the ongoing UK-based court case determining whether the Bank of England will be forced to return over a billion dollars worth of gold to the Caribbean country.

Since 2020, the bank has refused to relinquish 32 tons of Venezuelan gold – valued at roughly $1.7 billion – to the Maduro administration, citing the British government’s decision to recognize Guaido rather than its elected leader.

IMF chief expects to keep 2023 global growth forecast steady at 2.7%

IMF chief says US may be able to avoid recession in 2023

Managing Director of IMF Kristalina Georgieva PHOTO BY TING SHEN /Photographer: Ting Shen/Bloomberg

The International Monetary Fund in October forecast US GDP growth for 2023 at 1%. The World Bank on January 10 projected US growth at half a percent for 2023.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said 2023 would be another "tough year" for the global economy, and inflation remained stubborn, but she did not expect another year of successive downgrades like those seen last year, barring unexpected developments.

"Growth continues to slow down in 2023," she told reporters at the IMF's headquarters in Washington. "The more positive piece of the picture is in the resilience of labor markets. As long as people are employed, even if prices are high, people spend... and that has helped the performance."

She added that the IMF does not expect any major downgrades. "That's the good news."

Georgieva said the IMF expected the slowdown in global growth to "bottom out" and "turn around towards the end of '23 and into '24."

Georgieva said there was much hope that China - which previously contributed some 35% to 40% of global growth, but had "disappointing" results last year - would once again contribute to global growth, likely from mid-2023. But that depended on Beijing not changing course and sticking to its plans to reverse its zero-Covid policies, she said.

She said the United States - the biggest economy in the world - was likely to see a soft landing, and would suffer only a mild recession, if it did enter a technical recession.

But Georgieva said great uncertainty remained, including a significant climate event, a major cyberattack or the danger of escalation in Russia's war in Ukraine, for instance through the use of nuclear weapons.

"We are now in a more shockprone world and we have to be open-minded that there could be risk turn that we are not even thinking about," she said. "That's the whole point of the last years. The unthinkable has happened twice."

She cited concerns about growing social unrest in Brazil, Peru and other countries, and the impact of tightening financial conditions remained unclear.

But inflation remained "stubborn" and central banks should continue to press for price stability, she added.

IMF chief says US may be able to avoid recession in 2023

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has said that there is mounting evidence that the United States can avoid recession this year and achieve a "soft landing" for its economy, Reuters reported on Thursday.

US labor markets remain resilient and consumer demand remains strong despite increases in interest rates to fight inflation, Georgieva told reporters, adding that there has been a healthy shift away from excess goods purchases, which had pressured prices, back toward services demand, and there were more diversified sources of growth in the economy.

"It gives some argumentation of an expectation that the US would avoid falling into recession," she said. "And actually, I would say even if it is in technical terms in recession, that will be a very mild recession," the IMF chief noted.

IMF Chief Urges China to Stay Course on Reopening Economy

Kristalina urged China to move forward with reopening its economy, calling the nation’s transition from a Covid Zero policy to more normal functioning likely the single most important factor for global growth in 2023.

The Washington-based financial institution believes that a world recession can be avoided, even as growth slows from an estimated 3.2% in 2022, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters Thursday. If the US, the largest economy, goes into contraction, it will be a mild one, she said.

The fund doesn’t expect a major downgrade of its October forecast for a 2.7% expansion in global GDP when it updates its World Economic Outlook on Jan. 31 in Singapore, Georgieva said. Global growth is likely to bottom out toward the end of the year, with the pace picking up next year, she said.

Inflation remains stubborn, and the job of central banks to tame price increases is not yet finished, she said in a wide-ranging discussion that lasted more than an hour.

“What is most important is for China to stay the course, not to back off from that reopening,” said Georgieva, who visited the world’s second-largest economy last month for the first time since the start of the pandemic. “If they stay the course, by mid-year or there around, China will turn into a positive contributor to average global growth,” she said, calling the nation’s 2022 performance “very disappointing.”

A year after the Covid-19 omicron variant and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine slammed the brakes on the global economy, President Vladimir Putin’s war continues to be a negative factor for investor and consumer confidence, especially in Europe, she said. Potential of a spillover from the war is the risk that would have the biggest impact on economic expansion, although it’s a low-probability event, Georgieva said.

While the world’s lender of last resort sees no systemic debt crisis on the horizon, 60% of low-income nations are at or near distress.

The Group of 20 largest economies along with the IMF and World Bank will hold a global sovereign debt roundtable on the margins of a meeting of central bankers and finance ministers in India next month to bring together representatives from governments, borrowing nations and private lenders to discuss challenges.

Georgieva said that one risk the world is not yet prepared for but may surface later this year is the impact of tighter financial conditions on labor markets and employment. While governments have provided policy support to help workers deal with high energy prices, that ability is shrinking, and down the line people being out of a job amid faster inflation could lead to protests like those seen in nations from Lebanon to Chile in 2019, Georgieva said.