Russia managed to circumvent international sanctions and disconnection from the SWIFT system by conducting transactions worth $7 billion through leading Western and Asian banks.

This is stated in an investigation by the Financial Times.

According to the publication, a significant portion of the funds were directed to the purchase of dual-use goods for the military and special services of the Russian Federation.

The scheme was organized by the Russian crypto company A7, which is controlled by fugitive Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor (51%) and the Russian defense-industrial complex (DIC) bank Promsvyazbank (49%).

The company issues the A7A5 stablecoin (cryptocurrency), which has the official status of a digital asset in Russia.

How the sanctions circumvention scheme worked

To gain direct access to the SWIFT network and traditional banking, the organizers created a network of hundreds of shell companies in different jurisdictions:

• United Arab Emirates (UAE) – 61 companies;
• Hong Kong – 87 firms;
• Kyrgyzstan – 16 companies;
• Indonesia – 14 firms.

Of these, at least 100 companies made payments directly. To disguise the payments, intermediaries massively forged invoices and used thousands of seals of third-party legal entities , and during the purchase of goods, they replaced the customs codes of sanctioned equipment.

What did the Russian Federation buy and which banks were involved?

Through front structures, Russia paid for the technical support necessary for military needs:

• CNC metalworking machines worth 1.77 million euros were purchased for the Interconsul company, which is overseen by the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU);
• a batch of 500 night vision devices worth 3.6 million yuan (about $510,000);
• The largest payer was the state-owned “Trading Company of the Kyrgyz Republic”, created by the country’s Ministry of Economy at the end of 2024 and liquidated in February 2026, through which $2.5 billion was transferred.

In general, funds passed through banking systems through accounts at the following institutions:

• First Abu Dhabi Bank – over $1.8 billion;
• Hong Kong branches of the British Standard Chartered – $1.1 billion;
• Singaporean DBS – $273 million;
• American Citigroup – $74 million;
• German Deutsche Bank – about $18 million;
• JPMorgan Chase was also used to transfer funds.

The main channel for distributing finances within the European Union was a company in Hungary.

Subsequently, banks began blocking suspicious accounts due to the detection of forged documentation, and the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on A7 back in May 2025.

However, the scale of the leak suggests that the actual volume of transactions could be much higher. The archives record another 17,500 unidentified payments and the issuance of promissory notes worth over $20 billion.

Recall that Russia uses the Maldives to covertly circumvent sanctions . Goods worth hundreds of millions of dollars have already passed through the airport in the country’s capital, Male.

In particular, in August, the UK government expanded sanctions restrictions against Russia, including six Russian banks, six companies, six “shadow fleet” vessels, and one businessman.

As reported, at least 10 Russian postal services are involved in the postal and logistics network through which goods subject to European Union sanctions arrive in Russia. Джерело: https://censor.net/ua/n4024700

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