By Anton Zverev
LONDON, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Binance last year handed Russian authorities details of cryptocurrency donations to Ukrainian fundraising campaigns that were used as evidence to bring terrorism financing charges against a Russian IT specialist, law enforcement documents show.
While it is normal for companies like Binance to comply when law enforcement agencies in countries where they operate make legitimate requests to see client information, the world's largest crypto exchange said in 2023
it had fully exited Russia.
Many Russian citizens have in the past few years used such exchanges to support causes that Moscow subsequently labelled extremist or terrorist. Several dozen people who made such donations have been prosecuted and convicted in Russia, rights activists who track the cases said. Reuters could not establish the precise number.
Russia's Investigative Committee, which handles serious criminal cases, alleged in October that IT specialist Yuri Belenkiy, who was detained in September 2025, sent more than $700 to the Ukrainian military and an associated group, known at different times as the Azov Brigade and the Azov Regiment, which Moscow designates as a terrorist organisation.
Binance was under no obligation to provide the data, having quit Russia, and may in fact have had an obligation not to provide it under European Union data protection law, said Mike Bystrov, founder of law firm Stellar Consulting that advises on crypto regulation.
Binance disputes this view.
"Binance does not make or enforce the laws of any jurisdiction, determine charges, or decide how any government uses information in legal proceedings," a Binance spokesperson said in an emailed statement. "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."
Contacted by Reuters for comment on the case, the European Data Protection Board, a body set up by the EU, declined to comment, saying responsibility for enforcement of data protection laws lies with relevant authorities in individual European states.
Asked by Reuters if data protection laws had been broken in Belenkiy's case, the Commission for Personal Data Protection in Bulgaria, where Belenkiy is a resident, did not respond.
The documents seen by Reuters only relate to Belenkiy's case, and Reuters could not determine if any other people who made donations via crypto have been drawn into the Russian law enforcement investigation, or if Binance had identified other users to Russian law enforcement.
The First Corps Azov of the Ukrainian National Guard said it does not disclose donors' names. The Ukrainian armed forces and the Ukrainian presidential administration did not respond to requests for comment. The Kremlin and Russia's Investigative Committee did not respond to requests for comment.
Belenkiy, who holds a Russian passport and a Bulgarian residency permit, is now in a Russian jail awaiting trial. A lawyer for the 49-year-old did not respond to Reuters questions about the case or Binance's role in the investigation.
The law enforcement documents seen by Reuters were obtained by The First Department, which provides legal support to people in Russia being prosecuted in political cases. The NGO said it was given the documents, which describe the evidence state investigators gathered on Belenkiy before he was charged, by a relative of his. Reuters could not independently confirm this.
Reuters previously reported that Binance's regional boss had in 2021 met officials from Russia's financial monitoring agency who wanted help identifying customers who made bitcoin donations to Alexei Navalny.
At the time, Binance told Reuters it had never been contacted by Russian Authorities regarding the anti-Kremlin campaigner, who died in an Arctic penal colony in 2024.
In the wake of Russia's February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Western sanctions imposed on Moscow in response, Binance said it was selling its entire Russian business.
In September 2023 the company said that operating in Russia was not compatible with its compliance strategy and that it was fully exiting Russia, with no ongoing revenue sharing and no option to buy back the business.
"An EU resident would hardly imagine that a crypto-giant that announced it was leaving Russia is actually retaining a channel of communication with that country's law enforcement. And in their worst nightmares the EU resident would not imagine that the same crypto-giant would give them up, at the first time of asking, to detectives and investigators who engage in political repression," Dmitry Zair-Bek, head of The First Department, told Reuters.
Bulgaria's foreign ministry declined to comment.
EUROPEAN DATA PROTECTION LAWS
Bystrov, the crypto regulation lawyer, said if Belenkiy was registered with Binance as an EU resident, which he may have been given his Bulgarian residency, he would be covered by the bloc's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This would prohibit Binance from disclosing his details without a court order and compliance with very stringent provisions, he said.
"In addition, in the EU and under GDPR, Russia is not viewed as a country with an adequate level of protection for personal data, therefore sending personal data there is a very delicate matter," Bystrov added.
Bystrov in a previous role was a member of the legal team that represented Binance when it successfully challenged a ban on its main website within Russia in January 2021.
Binance did not comment on whether handing over Belenkiy's data would constitute a GDPR rule breach. Reuters could not establish if Belenkiy was registered with Binance as an EU customer.
Asked if his client was registered with Binance as a Bulgarian resident, and therefore covered by GDPR rules, Belenkiy's lawyer did not reply.
The documents seen by Reuters show Russian law enforcement officials sent a request to Binance for Belenkiy's transaction history, and Binance responded by sending details showing crypto transfers to the Ukrainian organisations.
Details of Belenkiy's transactions via Binance were incorporated as evidence in the case against him, one document showed. An interim outline of the case sent to the offices of the Russian prosecutor-general cites the transactions as grounds for the terrorism financing charges.
Binance declined to comment on details of Belenkiy's case, saying: "Binance does not comment on specific confidential law enforcement requests or individual cases."
In its October 13, 2025 statement, the Investigative Committee alleged Belenkiy made the crypto payments between January 2023 and March 2024 in response to an online appeal by Arkady Babchenko, an exiled Kremlin critic who supports Ukraine.
Reuters saw several posts from that period on Babchenko's channel in the Telegram social media network, in which he listed cryptocurrency wallets to which people could send donations. The funds, he said, would then be used to buy medical equipment for Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russian forces.
Contacted by Reuters, Babchenko said he urged people inside Russia not to transfer funds to Ukrainian military fund-raisers because of the risk of arrest. He said he was not responsible for the actions of crypto exchanges, but that it was "inappropriate" for them to share details of Russian clients' donations with Russian law enforcement.
One document said the Investigative Committee asked Binance to reveal the identities of others who had transferred currency to the wallet for which Babchenko was soliciting donations. The documents did not disclose the outcome.
After the Russian investigators sought Binance's cooperation, they received two replies from an email address case@binanceholdings.ru, the documents show. Reuters found a post on Binance's website advising Russian and Belarusian law enforcement agencies to use this address to contact the company.
The replies contained a data file which included confirmation that Belenkiy was the customer who initiated the transfer to the wallet listed by Babchenko, his date of birth, address, telephone number and passport number, a copy of his Russian passport and a copy of his Bulgarian residency permit.
(Additional reporting by Dan Peleschuk in KYIV and Tom Wilson in LONDON ; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Susan Fenton and Alexander Smith)
