EU sanctions against Russia, included in the newly adopted 19th package, target the crypto sector for the first time. Brussels says the measures respond to Moscow’s use of crypto services to conduct international payments and bypass restrictions.
“As evasion tactics grow more sophisticated, we will adapt our sanctions to stay one step ahead. For the first time, our measures will cover cryptocurrency platforms and transactions,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
Specific entities are in the crosshairs—namely those supporting the Grinex crypto exchange and the A7A5 stablecoin. But the fallout will also reach ordinary Russians without a second citizenship or foreign residency.
Russian officials have made no secret that businesses are using crypto to work around sanctions—and they’ve helped enable it. Since September 2024, an experimental legal regime overseen by the Central Bank has allowed participants to conduct foreign trade using digital assets.
Before that pilot, crypto was already in use. Even without a legal basis, authorities did not try to stop it. “There are different ways in which they [participants in foreign economic activity] solve problems - and they don’t even share them with us. Maybe it’s right that they don’t,” Central Bank chief Elvira Nabiullina acknowledged.
Cut off from the dollar-based financial system, Russia has leaned more on crypto, even as its legal status at home remains unsettled.
Bloomberg and Reuters report that not only importers of sanctioned goods but also major Russian exporters - including oil and metals firms - resort to crypto. For them, it’s a fallback when standard payment channels falter.
The new EU measures go after the largest known crypto setup used by Russian companies to bypass restrictions: the ruble-pegged stablecoin A7A5, available on the Kyrgyz-registered Grinex exchange. How the project works—and who is behind it—was detailed in a mid-2025 Financial Times investigation.
According to the report, Grinex is a reincarnation of the Garantex exchange, previously blocked by the US and Germany. In its first four months, Grinex handled $9.3 billion in transactions via the A7A5 stablecoin, journalists calculated.
The principal owner of A7, the company running the stablecoin, is Moldovan businessman Ilan Shor. In 2019, a Moldovan court found Shor guilty in a $1 billion bank fraud case, but he fled to Russia, where he obtained citizenship. The report also says PSB, a bank serving Russia’s defense sector, is involved.
Soon after the FT investigation, infrastructure tied to A7A5 was sanctioned by the US and the UK, but the project continued operating. Analytics firm Elliptic estimates A7A5 transactions reached $68 billion by the end of September.
A7’s website claims A7A5 can move money to most countries and in nearly any currency, including dollars and euros. The customer flow is simple: deposit rubles, convert to A7A5, swap into USDT (the most popular dollar-pegged stablecoin), then withdraw in the counterparty’s local currency. The company promises one-day settlement with a 0.36% fee.
Whether the measures will ramp up pressure on Grinex and A7 remains to be seen. Their impact will grow with tighter coordination among regulators and financial institutions in sanctioning countries, analysts at TRM Labs studying Grinex warn.
What’s clearer: ordinary Russians will face new hurdles. EU-registered crypto exchanges are barred from serving all Russian citizens who lack a second citizenship or a foreign residence permit—regardless of whether they’re sanctioned.
Most Russian users trade on platforms registered outside the EU, in jurisdictions like Seychelles, the UAE and Singapore, legal experts at the “First Department” project note. But major venues such as Bybit, OKX, Gate and Bitget have European subsidiaries that share infrastructure. Lawyers say these companies may choose to stop serving Russians altogether as a precaution.
Any restrictions are unlikely to hit all at once, they add. Exchanges will probably give users time to withdraw funds. Still, they advise acting early.
