The UK is done asking nicely. London sanctioned three crypto exchanges and two payment platforms Thursday for helping Russian entities sidestep sanctions – a package that reads less like a slap on the wrist and more like an attempt to unplug (at least on paper) the plumbing behind a $90 billion financial detour.
Three of the named providers are linked to Kyrgyzstan; two facilitated transactions with the Kremlin-backed A7 network, according to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. The A7 financial network claims to have moved more than $90 billion last year – nearly half of Russia’s annual military expenditure, if one takes the marketing at face value.
UK crypto exchange sanctions target the A7 corridor
The designation list names Kyrgyzstani exchange TokenSpot along with payment processors Cryptomus and Heleket. Chainalysis found the two payment processors received funds from thousands of illicit counterparties, peaking at 900 entities within a single month in late 2025 – a volume that makes “merchant payments” an optimistic description.
Chainalysis also tied TokenSpot, Grinex and Meer to more than $308 million received from the same HTX deposit address. HTX operator Huobi Global was itself added to UK sanctions in May; HTX pushed back then, arguing the designation applied only to Huobi Global as a legal entity and left its exchange and user funds untouched. This week’s package suggests UK authorities got the message and widened the net anyway.
The stablecoin side of the story
Sanctions evasion has a tokenized footnote. The ruble-backed A7A5 stablecoin processed roughly $110 billion in cumulative onchain transactions leading up to June, per CertiK data – continuing to grow despite Western restrictions. Stablecoins were supposed to be the honest rails of finance; increasingly they are the freight cars of everything else.
Cointelegraph has approached TokenSpot, Cryptomus and Heleket for comment. For exchanges operating in the grey corridor between Bishkek and Moscow, the practical message from London is simple: the compliance emails are coming, and they will not be going to spam.
Source: Cointelegraph, October 9, 2026.
