The UK has imposed sanctions on a group of cryptocurrency exchanges, payments firms and individuals accused of helping Russia evade Western restrictions and finance its war in Ukraine, including crypto exchange Huobi.
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s sanctions package targets 18 entities and individuals linked to what officials described as “the illegal financial infrastructure used by Russia to move funds, procure goods and support its war.”
Among them are Huobi Global SA, operator of the HTX exchange, Rapira Group LLC, Aifory LLC, Arvix LLC and Bitpapa IC FZC LLC.
HTX is one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, with a trading volume of around $3.3 trillion last year, according to a blog post from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.
Elliptic said the platform is suspected of providing services to both the A7 payment network and Garantex, a Russian crypto exchange previously sanctioned by Western authorities. Garantex was renamed Grinex earlier this year and halted operations last month after a $13 million “state-sponsored” hack.
Britain also sanctioned the Open Joint Stock Company “Virtual Asset Issuer”, a Kyrgyzstan-linked company behind the USDKG gold-backed stablecoin, as well as several people accused of sanctions evasion activities, including Sergey Mendeleev, Igor Gorin, Irina Akopyan and Israeli national Liran Cohen.
These measures constitute one of the strongest measures ever taken by the country against Russia’s use of cryptocurrencies and alternative payment systems. For the first time, the UK has applied Regulation 17A of its Russia sanctions regime to crypto exchanges, a tool previously used against sanctioned banks.
Under the rules, UK financial companies and crypto service providers cannot have correspondent relationships with the designated entities or process payments related to them. Companies may also have to freeze funds and trace blockchain transactions linked to sanctioned platforms.
Elliptic said the rules could require firms to trace transactions across multiple blockchain “hops,” meaning compliance checks would extend beyond direct counterparties to wallets and exchanges appearing anywhere in a transaction chain.
One of the main targets of the sanctions package is the Kremlin-backed A7 payment network, which British officials say helped process revenue from Russian oil sales and supported military purchases. The UK says the network moved more than $90 billion last year.
Elliptic said other regulators would likely closely watch Britain’s tests of a new model for applying traditional financial sanctions rules to digital asset markets.
The sanctions took effect immediately. CoinDesk reached out to Huobi for comment but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
