Ukrainian Authorities Block Russian Crypto Exchanges as per Reports

• They worked together to single out cryptocurrency exchanges in Russia.
• The SFMS has developed a method for the “blocking of Russian Federation’s crypto wallets.”

Ukraine’s financial intelligence agency, the State Financial Monitoring Service (SFMS), has released a special report detailing the outcomes of its work in 2022. The agency said that it has helped with the country’s military effort during the continuing battle with Russia, in addition to its peacetime responsibilities like countering money laundering.

This week, the regulator released a paper proclaiming the collaboration of its staff with the Ministry of Digital Transformation and prominent Ukrainian crypto specialists. They worked together to single out cryptocurrency exchanges in Russia that have ties to sanctioned Russian financial institutions including Sber, the biggest bank in Russia.

Blocking of Crypto Wallets

The Ukrainian banking authority didn’t say how many or what their domain names were, but they did stress that they wanted to completely shut them down.

The SFMS has developed a method for the “blocking of Russian Federation’s crypto wallets” in close coordination with crypto service providers in Ukraine and others. It is unclear if this refers to all Russian wallets or just those associated with the Moscow administration.

The government agency recalled that it had reached out to Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange, the previous year to propose measures “to curb the aggression of the Russian Federation in the virtual assets market” and to block users of various Russian banks and payment systems from engaging in peer-to-peer transactions.

The agency also said, without providing details, that “other practical measures related to the blocking of Russian crypto assets and operations of Russian residents have been implemented.” In this issue, it has been working with the financial authorities of around 140 nations while cutting connections with those of Russia and Belarus.