The UK government designated crypto exchange HTX under its Russia sanctions regime on May 26, 2026, accusing the platform of providing financial services connected to Moscow's sanctions-evasion infrastructure — a move that prompted immediate compliance notices from multiple major exchanges the following day.

The Foreign Office added HTX to its Russia sanctions list as part of an 18-entity package targeting what it described as a "backdoor" financial network sustaining Putin's war economy. At the center of the designation is the A7 network, a Kremlin-backed system the Foreign Office said moved more than $90 billion last year — roughly half of Russia's annual military expenditure. Authorities said a Kyrgyz bank and a major cryptocurrency exchange channelled an estimated $1.5 billion of those funds back into Russia.

The designation invokes Regulation 17A of the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which blockchain analytics firm Elliptic described as "one of the most powerful tools in the UK's financial sanctions framework." It is the first time the UK has applied Regulation 17A to crypto exchanges. Under its provisions, UK credit and financial institutions are barred from correspondent relationships with designated entities, and UK-registered virtual asset service providers are legally required to freeze funds connected to them — including where a designated exchange appears anywhere in a payment chain.

By May 27, exchanges including OKX and Bitget had issued notices to users warning of heightened scrutiny on HTX-linked transactions. Bitget updated its sanctions screening systems. OKX warned of possible account restrictions. CoinDesk reported Binance and Bybit issued similar notices, though primary statements from those two exchanges were not independently located before publication.

HTX rejected the allegations. A company spokesperson told CoinDesk the entity designated by the Foreign Office — "Huobi Global S.A." — is legally distinct from the exchange's online platform. HTX also said it had refused to list the A7A5 ruble-pegged stablecoin after an application from A7 LLC, the token's issuer, following its own due diligence review. "A7A5 was trying to list their stablecoin. However, following our rigorous internal due diligence and compliance review processes, their application was explicitly rejected," an HTX spokesperson said.

The Foreign Office acknowledged it lacked specific evidence of HTX-A7 cooperation, stating only that it had "reasonable grounds to suspect" the exchange was assisting A7 — which the UK characterizes as operating "in a sector of strategic significance to the Government of Russia." HTX's rebuttal was corroborated by A7A5 executive Oleg Ogienko, who confirmed all major centralized exchanges rejected the stablecoin's listing application due to secondary sanctions risk.

Claims requiring editorial sign-off before publication:

  1. Binance and Bybit statements — CoinDesk names both as having issued HTX compliance notices but primary posts could not be verified (X.com fetch failed). Article currently names OKX and Bitget as confirmed and attributes Binance/Bybit to CoinDesk. Editor should confirm whether that attribution is sufficient or whether those two names should be dropped entirely.

  2. All other material claims — the $90B figure, $1.5B figure, Foreign Office language, Elliptic's Regulation 17A characterization, and HTX's rebuttal — are verified against the listed primary sources.