Inside Russia’s Secret Crypto Cold War in 2025
The Russia-Ukraine war has waged on for nearly 4 years now. Western sanctions were meant to isolate Russia financially. Instead, they forced adaptation.
In 2025, BeInCrypto began documenting how Russia and Russia-linked actors rebuilt payment routes using crypto. What emerged was not a single exchange or token, but a resilient system designed to survive freezes, seizures, and enforcement delays.
This investigation reconstructs that system in chronological order, based on on-chain forensic analysis and interviews with investigators tracking the flows.
The First Warning Signs Were not Criminal
Early signals did not point to ransomware or darknet markets. They pointed to trade.
