Binance Handed Russia Client Data That Fueled Terrorism Charges Against a Man Who Donated to Ukraine

A Russian IT worker is facing terrorism financing charges over $700 in crypto donations to Ukraine. The evidence came from Binance, according to law enforcement documents reviewed by Reuters.

Yuri Belenkiy, 49, holds a Russian passport and Bulgarian residency. He was detained in September 2025 and formally charged on October 13, 2025, according to Reuters. Russia's Investigative Committee alleges he sent more than $700 in cryptocurrency between January 2023 and March 2024 to the Ukrainian military and a group tied to the Azov Brigade, which Moscow designates a terrorist organization.

The donations, according to Reuters, were made in response to appeals from Arkady Babchenko, an exiled Kremlin critic who has publicly solicited crypto for Ukrainian troops. Babchenko posted wallet addresses on his Telegram channel asking for donations to fund medical equipment for soldiers. Babchenko told Reuters he had specifically warned people inside Russia not to send money to these fundraisers because of arrest risk, and said he believes it's wrong for exchanges to hand Russian donors' details to Russian law enforcement.

Documents show Russian officials requested Belenkiy's transaction history directly from Binance. The exchange provided records showing the crypto transfers. Russian prosecutors cited those exact transactions as grounds for the terrorism financing case, according to a case outline reviewed by Reuters and separately reported by Cryptonomist. One document indicates investigators also asked Binance to identify other people who donated to the same wallet Babchenko promoted. Reuters could not determine whether Binance complied with that broader request, and could not establish how many other donors, if any, have been swept into Russian investigations as a result.

The exit that wasn't a full exit

Binance announced in September 2023 that it had fully exited the Russian market, telling the public there would be no ongoing revenue sharing and no option to buy the business back. But the documents reviewed by Reuters show Binance kept responding to Russian law enforcement data requests well after that announcement.

A company can walk away from a country's market commercially while still keeping an open line to that country's investigators. Whether that constitutes a violation depends on what law you are reading.

Mike Bystrov, founder of the crypto-focused law firm Stellar Consulting, told Reuters that Binance was under no obligation to hand over the data since it had already quit Russia, and may have had an actual legal obligation not to under European Union data protection law. EU data protection rules restrict transferring personal data to third countries without adequate safeguards, and Russia is not considered to offer those safeguards.

Binance disputes that framing entirely. A company spokesperson told Reuters: "Binance does not make or enforce the laws of any jurisdiction, determine charges, or decide how any government uses information in legal proceedings. Like other global financial institutions, we cooperate with lawful information requests from law enforcement globally, subject to applicable legal, privacy and regulatory requirements. Those decisions rest solely with the relevant Authorities."

Exchanges get thousands of law enforcement requests globally and are generally expected to cooperate with legitimate ones. That is the price of operating as a regulated financial institution rather than a lawless black box. Regulators in the U.S. and Europe have spent years demanding exactly this kind of cooperation from crypto platforms to fight money laundering and terrorism financing. Binance cannot simultaneously be blamed for stonewalling law enforcement in other cases and blamed for cooperating in this one, unless the specific request itself was improper.

What remains unresolved is whether Binance should have refused this particular request given the sanctions environment, the war in Ukraine, and its own public claim of having exited Russia. Nobody disputes Binance handed over the data. What is contested is whether it should have done so.

No clear answers from regulators

The European Data Protection Board, the EU body overseeing data protection enforcement, declined to comment when Reuters asked about the case, saying enforcement is up to individual member states. Bulgaria's Commission for Personal Data Protection, relevant because Belenkiy is a Bulgarian resident, did not respond to Reuters' inquiry. That leaves the legal question Bystrov raised entirely untested. No regulator has opened an investigation into whether Binance's data transfer violated EU law, and none of the sourcing here shows any enforcement action pending against the exchange.

Rights activists tracking these cases told Reuters that several dozen people have been prosecuted and convicted in Russia for donations to causes Moscow later labeled extremist or terrorist, though Reuters could not confirm an exact number. The First Corps Azov of the Ukrainian National Guard said it does not disclose donor names. Russia's Investigative Committee, the Kremlin, and Ukraine's presidential administration did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

The immediate question is what happens to Belenkiy, who is facing a serious criminal charge in Russia over $700. The bigger question is whether any EU regulator will examine whether Binance's data handoff broke the law it was supposedly bound by after leaving the Russian market. So far, nobody in a position to answer that has said anything on the record.