The European Union is planning a broad crackdown on cryptocurrency operations linked to Russia, aiming to block one of Moscow’s last avenues for sidestepping international sanctions, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Feb. 9.

According the report, which cites a confidential European Commission (EC) document, the proposed measures focus heavily on networks tied to the Russian exchange Garantex which has been under US sanctions since 2022, and the A7 platform as well as its ruble-backed stablecoin, A7A5, an increasingly significant tool for moving money outside traditional banking systems.

This approach represents a shift from Brussels’ previous tactic…