Amid Russia’s ongoing incursion into Ukraine, the US and its private sector partners want to help Ukrainian authorities seek to stop Russian actors using cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions—something which the European authorities are already trying to solve.
Today the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI) unit and blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis started an advanced, in-person blockchain analysis training in Frankfurt, Germany for Ukrainian law enforcement agencies.
IRS-CI Chief Jim Lee said Decrypt and other media outlets in a call Thursday morning that he wanted to “highlight the importance of partnerships (private-public or public-public) and how they are critical to doing business”, adding that they are “key to deciphering complex financial transactions. .”
Twenty Ukranian investigators from three different law enforcement agencies—the National Police, the Economic Security Bureau, and the Department of Cyber and Information Security of the Security Service—participated in training on Learn how to analyze blockchain data, track cryptocurrency transactions, and develop. operational leads.
“This is a step towards improving the trust of different agencies and companies in the private sector. Everything will be more successful if the public sector allocates the necessary resources” said Michael Gronager, co-founder and CEO of blockchain analytics company Chainalysis, the leading private sector partner.
IRS-CI donated 15 Chainalysis Reactor licenses to the Ukrainian authorities for training.
“It is important for us to identify all Russian assets on the territory of Ukraine. We oppose the aggressor state not only on the battlefield, but also in the economic field,” said Eduard Fedorov, acting director of the Economic Security Bureau. of Ukraine in a press release.
According to government and private entities, cryptocurrencies play both good and bad roles in the conflict.
On the one hand, pro-Russian groups are asking for crypto donations, with more than 100 different groups receiving $5 million in the past year, although this number has decreased in the bag -oh months.
Meanwhile, crypto assets are also being used for good, whether that’s directly helping the war effort or for humanitarian needs. Ukrainian organizations and individuals received more than $50 million dollars worth.
The authorities noted in the call that the majority of transactions – good and bad – are mostly made in Bitcoin and stablecoins, the latter of which has seen a significant increase in recent months.
