Binance Gave Russia Data Used to Charge Ukraine Donor

Binance provided Russian authorities with customer records later used to charge IT specialist Yuri Belenkiy with financing terrorism over cryptocurrency donations to Ukrainian military-linked groups, according to law enforcement documents reviewed by Reuters and published Monday. The disclosure came more than two years after Binance sold its entire Russian business and said the country no longer fit its compliance strategy, raising questions about why the exchange continued responding to Russian law enforcement requests after formally exiting the market.

What Binance Handed Over

Russia’s Investigative Committee, the body that handles serious criminal cases, alleged in October 2025 that Belenkiy sent more than $700 in cryptocurrency to the Ukrainian military and an associated group known at different times as the Azov Brigade and the Azov Regiment, which Moscow classifies as a terrorist organization. The transfers occurred between January 2023 and March 2024, made in response to an online appeal from exiled Kremlin critic Arkady Babchenko, who had publicly solicited crypto donations for Ukrainian soldiers on his Telegram channel.

After Russian investigators requested Belenkiy’s transaction history, they received two replies from an email address, case@binanceholdings.ru, a contact Binance’s own website had directed Russian and Belarusian law enforcement agencies to use. The replies reportedly included a data file confirming Belenkiy as the customer who initiated the transfer to the wallet Babchenko had listed, along with his date of birth, address, phone number, passport number, and copies of both his Russian passport and Bulgarian residency permit. Belenkiy, 49, was detained in September 2025 and formally charged on October 13, 2025; he remains in custody awaiting trial.

A Compliance Gap After Binance’s Russia Exit

Binance sold its entire Russian business to CommEX in September 2023, stating at the time that operating in the country no longer fit its compliance strategy and that it would retain no revenue-sharing arrangement or option to repurchase the business. Reuters reported that Binance was under no legal obligation to provide the data once it had exited Russia, and may in fact have had an obligation not to disclose it under European Union and UK sanctions or data protection rules, since Belenkiy holds Bulgarian residency and the EU maintains its own data protection framework separate from Russian law.

Binance told Reuters it cooperates with lawful law enforcement requests subject to applicable legal, privacy, and regulatory requirements, but declined to discuss Belenkiy’s specific case or address whether the disclosure may have violated European data protection rules. Binance’s current published law-enforcement guidelines state the exchange requires a valid court order, police order, or warrant before providing user information in a criminal investigation.

• Rights activists who track similar cases say several dozen people have been prosecuted and convicted in Russia for crypto donations to causes Moscow later labeled extremist or terrorist, though the precise total number remains unclear
• The documents underlying this report were obtained by The First Department, an organization that supports defendants in Russian political cases, from one of Belenkiy’s relatives

Conclusion

The case exposes a gap between Binance’s public exit from Russia and its continued operational responsiveness to Russian law enforcement, a gap that carried direct consequences for a man now facing terrorism financing charges over a $700 donation to Ukrainian defense groups. Binance’s refusal to explain the specific decision-making behind the disclosure, combined with Reuters’ finding that no legal obligation compelled the response, leaves unresolved questions about how the exchange handles law enforcement requests from jurisdictions it has formally left. For crypto users in authoritarian states who assume an exchange’s market exit ends its cooperation with local authorities, Belenkiy’s prosecution suggests that assumption may not hold.