Ukrainian intelligence, together with the President’s Office and the National Bank, is expanding the “Finances of War” section on the War&Sanctions portal. The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR) has published information on 14 banks, financial intermediaries and payment systems that enable Russia to carry out international settlements while bypassing sanctions.
Because of the sweeping sanctions imposed on Russia’s financial sector, the aggressor state is forced to look for alternative channels for international payments. To do so, it is using digital currencies, cross-border payment networks and the financial infrastructure of other states that have not joined the sanctions.
This concerns:
- Finzypay – a payments and cryptocurrency platform that carries out conversions and transfers using the rouble-pegged digital asset RubX, developed with the involvement of the state corporation Rostec;
- “Asia-Pacific Bank” – a financial institution that conducts cross-border settlements involving China’s interbank system CIPS and a Kazakh bank;
- “Sistema-Crypto” — a Russian fintech service that is part of the AFK Sistema group, linked to the sanctioned Russian oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov.
For Russia’s military-industrial complex, access to international payments is of particular importance. Despite claims of so-called import substitution, Russia’s defence industry continues to depend on foreign electronic components, technological equipment, raw materials and other critically important resources.
Therefore, the operation of alternative financial channels allows the aggressor to sustain the necessary international procurement and retain access to components and technologies needed to produce weapons, intelligence officials emphasise.
Shutting down such schemes would complicate international settlements for Russia’s defence industry, weaken its supply chains and limit the aggressor state’s ability to maintain its military potential.
“At the same time, the sanctions policy towards the Russian Federation gives the civilised world an opportunity to develop effective mechanisms for monitoring and restricting international financial settlements. In the future, such tools may be used to counter aggressor states and other bad-faith participants in the international financial system,” they noted.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy enacted a decision of the National Security and Defence Council on imposing sanctions against 44 individuals involved in organising illegal “elections” to Russia’s State Duma in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.