Overview
- Reuters on Aug. 17, 2026 published law-enforcement documents showing Binance responded to Russian investigators with a data file that identified Yuri Belenkiy and included copies of his passport and Bulgarian residency permit.
- The Binance records were incorporated into terrorism-financing charges that accuse Belenkiy of sending small cryptocurrency donations to Ukrainian-linked fundraisers, and he remains jailed awaiting trial.
- The documents show investigators used Binance transaction logs to link on-chain wallet addresses publicized by an exiled critic to a verified exchange account, illustrating how centralized exchanges can deanonymize blockchain transfers.
- Binance says it cooperates with lawful information requests subject to legal and privacy limits, but the company had publicly said in September 2023 that it had fully exited Russia, complicating assessments of its responses to Russian probes.
- Legal experts and rights groups say the case raises potential GDPR issues if the account was registered in the EU and highlights the risk that small humanitarian or political donations can be treated as extremism by repressive states.