The EU Council approved the 19th sanctions package targeting Russia. The document includes 69 new personal and corporate restrictions, as well as measures affecting the energy sector (including LNG), finance, and digital assets. One of the goals of the package is to combat sanctions evasion using cryptocurrencies and related services.
The new rules strengthen oversight of transactions involving Russian counterparties and expand the list of companies and jurisdictions subject to additional scrutiny. This applies to both centralized exchanges and financial institutions working with cryptocurrency.
Experts note that pressure on the infrastructure enabling the use of cryptocurrencies for sanctions evasion will become one of the key regulatory trends in the EU in the coming months.