According to another reports, a Russian citizen named Aleksandr Vecherko from the Khabarovsk Krai region was arrested by the secret service on charges of donating cryptocurrency to support the Ukrainian military. The accusation is that Vecherko supported Ukraine by donating an unknown amount of cryptocurrency through a third party in Ukraine. Sources speculate that Vecherko donated USDT, which the FSB claimed enabled the enemy to purchase equipment such as night vision goggles, ammunition, and medicine.
Press charges of treason
As shown in a circulating video, Vescherko’s actions are viewed by the FSB as treason, which led to his arrest. He will face legal action and will be tried in a court of law. He is currently being held in the Russian capital, Moscow.
Fisherko’s arrest has drawn attention to the vulnerabilities of public cryptocurrencies, particularly in the ongoing war with Ukraine. Most likely, Vecherko did not use privacy-focused currencies like Monero or ZCash, which include obfuscation features to prevent third parties, including law enforcement, from tracking transactions. The privacy-focused technologies used by these coins, such as ring signatures in Monero, help protect the privacy of both sender and receiver, as well as hide the transaction amount.
Because Vecherko most likely used a token or coin whose transfers are public and where the identities of the sender and recipient can be decrypted, the FSB was able to trace the movement of the money. There may have been evidence to suggest that the recipient of the money served as a conduit for receiving donations destined for the Ukrainian military.
Most public blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cardano, operate pseudonymously and transparently. Although transactions are converted into machine-readable code using cryptographic elements, the identities of the participants can be decrypted.
USDT trading volumes increased in Russia
The token believed to have been used, USDT, can be minted on multiple chains, including Tron and Ethereum – both of which are public and enable pseudonymous transfers. Analysts noticed a significant increase in ruble-usd-dollar trading volumes on Binance during the alleged “coup” attempt last week by Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Wagner.
Trading volumes increased from $2 million to $8.5 million. On the contrary, no significant change was observed in the ruble and bitcoin pair, which indicates that many Russians prefer stablecoins to track the US dollar during times of crisis.
Since the outbreak of the conflict, Ukraine has received more than $70 million in cryptocurrency donations, with the majority of that money being used to support the Ukrainian military and provide humanitarian relief.
In addition, the Ukrainian government has created several crypto fundraising platforms to facilitate donations, including the official website of the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation and the non-profit organization Come Back Alive.
Featured image from Canva, chart from TradingView
