The Ukraine Lawyer Trying to Freeze Russians’ Crypto Wallets

Ukraine’s embattled government has called on crypto exchanges to block Russian users from using their crypto wallets to try to evade global sanctions. To find out how that effort is working, I talked to a Ukrainian lawyer who has been helping collect information about the crypto assets of Russian politicians.

“This is our personal war, because, for me, my four-month-old son woke up because of bombs,” said Artem Afian in a voice message over the Telegram app from Ukraine early this week. Afian is a former government adviser on crypto who owns the Telegram account collecting information about the crypto wallets of powerful Russians.