Bitcoin Forum

Binance, the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, has blocked several accounts linked to relatives of some high-ranking members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration. The move comes as sanctions continue to rain on Russia in response to its military assault on neighboring Ukraine.

Among the users who have been denied access in the past two months since the Russian troops crossed the Ukrainian border are the stepdaughter of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Polina Kovaleva, and Elizaveta Peskova, the daughter of the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Binance also banned Kirill Malofeev, the son of Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev. The latter has been accused by Washington of funding pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine. Malofeev, who is on the U.S. and EU sanctions lists and wanted by the Kyiv authorities for his involvement in the war in the Donbas region, is a Putin supporter.

Binance revealed it blocked Peskova on March 3, when she attempted to use the exchange through a third-party brokerage. She was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department the following week, the report details. Kovaleva’s account was shuttered on March 24, the day she was sanctioned by the U.K. Malofeev was designated by the U.S. Treasury on April 20 and had his Binance accounts blocked this week, the company added.



https://news.bitcoin.com/binance-blocks-accounts-linked-to-relatives-of-senior-russian-officials/

Binance sticking to what they say from the beginning when the sanction where made, they promise to only block those accounts who have become sanctioned so it is possible this individuals whose accounts have been blocked are among the sanctioned accounts.
This is a time of difficulties even for a big exchange like Binance, taking certain decisions may not be easy because of the negativity it will stir from others. However, it is important binance to what's right and in accordance with the stipulations from the sanction.

This is the reason why everyone need to avoid all centralized exchanges and only stick with decentralized exchanges! If you're using truly decentralized exchanges, you wouldn't ever got restrict since anyone are freely to use the exchanges. In centralized exchanges they can do anything what they want since they're regulated and need to follow the government rules. If the government said to ban all Russian, they will ban all accounts accessed with Russian IPs. If the government said they doesn't like X person, they will ban the targeted person.

I thought they were already banning Russian IP addresses as I have read in some thread, and now this relative of top officials, I don't see where this going because the are using crypto so its assumed they can use other platforms still. They'd rather block that IP address because that way, even if top officials will finds someone not related to them for their transaction they are not going to have success.

This news is outdated because starting from 2022-04-21 08:30, according to last binance announcment all russia citizens have 90 days to leave platworm. No matter if its Sergei Lavrov, Dmitry Peskov or 27-year-old taxi driver as long as they account is worth more than 10 000 EUR.

https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/4887e569afdf4b1e89e024371d3a49b9

"Following the EU’s fifth package of restrictive measures against Russia, Binance is required to limit services for Russian nationals or natural persons residing in Russia, or legal entities established in Russia, that have crypto assets exceeding the value of 10,000 EUR. As such, we require you to complete your proof-of-address verification."

"No deposits or trading will be permitted on these accounts"

That’s really bad for all Russians. If such big personalities are not able to get hold on to their own accounts then think about the common users of binance. Since most of them might have done the KYC already they all will be busted one by one as per new binance announcement. Similar goes for the IP based account access via Russian territory.

However, I feel like there is no mistake of the common users who might never have imagined that their leader would break a war against any country. Poor peeps might just loose all the funds for nothing.

These individuals are not to be compared with ordinary Russian Binance users. These sanctioned individuals are relatives of either Russian oligarchs or high-ranking Russian government officials. Binance is apparently under legal pressure to sanction them, but they are not as regards ordinary Russian citizens.

Anyway, why would ordinary Russians lose their funds in Binance for nothing? Nobody is confiscating them. But they should know better. First, Binance is not a storage to safekeep their funds. Second, the circumstances of the time make their Binance and other centralized exchanges' accounts more uncertain and less secured than ever. They must be aware that all of them could be targeted by unfair sanctions anytime so they should pull out their funds as soon as possible.

The ban on Russian official is as a result of pressure Binance is getting from the European Union of supporting the Russian assault on Ukrainian by not adoption the sanctions from USA and other european countries on Russian. They have to bow to pressure if not, the European Union might section or initiation strict rules that will affect Binance and it operations in europe.

Binance had almost refused the blocking of the sanctioned Russians accounts on their platform but as the aggression of Putin on Ukraine continues, Binance has no choice than to dance towards the music that requested them to block top Russian officials accounts to prevent ban evasion through the use of crypto exchanges.

OP, allow a little off-topic.
This thread was posted on April 29th.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5396658.0

What motivates you by creating such a duplicate of similar news?
After all, discussion can be continued on one topic? Or don't you think so?
Do you think you should close this topic now?

Hahaha, this is a big coincidence and I'm very surprised to see this on another thread. Well I don't mean to create a duplicate of another post. I really appreciate your consciousness to inform me on time on a similar thread.
You are absolutely right.
I think this discussion can be continued on the other similar thread in order to abolish spammy threads. Thanks for your swift approach and understanding. I am going to lock this thread now with immediate effect.

Binance started suspending the accounts related to the people who are among the Russian top economic and political people, everyone could predict from Binance that they start suspending their accounts, and when we say everyone this can include the Russian political people so I guess they already made their wallets empty before the suspending their accounts or at least many of them could run away before that happens, and they can easily start using the other exchange services where they do not have to reveal their real identity.

It looks like Binance is trying to get ahead of any possible bad publicity and possible financial sanctions from helping Russians. They must have been contacted by certain authorities and told to either start complying or they'll have a very bad time in future, judging by their refusal to cut Russian users off up until this point. There is also a pretty severe backlash against companies who continue to do business with this country right now and it seems like an obvious business decision, because they will likely make most of their money outside of Russia anyway. This sort of very selective targeting of users will also enable them to keep circumventing the sanctions as well, through networks of money movers.

they know this possibility as binance is asking compulsory kyc from its traders. so when sanctions began, it is only a matter of time before it hits the crypto exchanges. so yeah, why not use other exchanges which are not asking kyc from its customers like kucoin but you need to keep an eye on the amount because it will trigger a signal to the exchange.
they are only following for what's to come as they want to abide the protocols of the country where they are operating at.

For now that is the only option they can do because their life became more smaller and smaller for getting more sanction impose to them and I really think that this one will create huge effect to them since prolonging this incident to happen will not help their country but as well they will totally get affected on the effects what they bring. Maybe this one will lead the collapsed of Russian Federation.