UK Sanctions 3 Crypto Exchanges Over Russian Sanctions Evasion

The UK government has sanctioned three cryptocurrency exchanges and two payment platforms suspected of helping Russian entities circumvent financial sanctions, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) announced Thursday. Three of the service providers are based in Kyrgyzstan, while two facilitated transactions with the Kremlin-backed A7 financial network, which the Foreign Ministry said claimed to have moved more than $90 billion last year — nearly half of Russia's annual military expenditure.

Blockchain analytics platform Chainalysis found that two of the sanctioned payment processors, Cryptomus and Heleket, received funds from thousands of illicit counterparties, peaking at 900 entities within a single month in late 2025. Another sanctioned platform, the Kyrgyzstani TokenSpot exchange, was also tied to the A7 network. Chainalysis determined that TokenSpot, along with Grinex and Meer, received over $308 million from the same HTX deposit address. In May, UK authorities included Huobi Global, the operator of crypto exchange HTX, in their sanctions package; HTX has pushed back, arguing that the designation applies only to Huobi Global as a separate legal entity and that its online exchange and user funds remain unaffected.

"Cutting off these platforms makes it harder for sanctioned entities to move and access funds," the Foreign Ministry said. The Russian ruble-backed A7A5 stablecoin processed $110 billion in cumulative onchain transactions leading up to June, continuing to grow despite Western sanctions, according to CertiK. The latest measures reflect an escalating international effort to use blockchain analytics and targeted sanctions to disrupt the financial infrastructure supporting sanctioned Russian entities and illicit finance networks.