CEX refuse crackdown for all Russian crypto users after repetitive requests from Ukraine

After the Ukrainian government urged the crypto exchanges for a crypto crackdown on Russian investors, the Centralized Exchanges (CEX) have continued to refuse the request to make innocent Russian users suffer. However, exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken have agreed to freeze assets of Russian users targeted explicitly by Western sanctions.

Fact:
Banks (most of them I hope) follow sanction rules.
Crypto exchanges (at least Binance) follow sanction rules.

Media:
Crypto exchanges don't sanction Russia normal people.
Crypto exchanges don't follow sanction rules.

🤷‍♂️

— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) March 3, 2022

In explaining why he was not preemptively banning all Russians (However, Coinbase does not operate in Russia), Coinbase’s CEO Brian Armstrong, “we believe everyone deserves access to basic financial services unless the law says otherwise. Some ordinary Russians are using crypto as a lifeline now that their currency has collapsed. Many of them likely oppose what their country is doing, and a ban would hurt them, too.”

Kraken CEO Jesse Powell reiterated sentiments of the above statement by saying: 

“Kraken cannot freeze the accounts of our Russian clients without a legal requirement to do so. Russians should be aware that such a requirement could be imminent.”

Russian sanctioned banks facing consequences

Individuals who have not been sanctioned appear to be suffering the effects of sanctions. Binance had notified the day before that cardholder of sanctioned Russian banks would be unable to use their wallets on its platform. As TheCoinRise reported, the sanctioned banks are also not able to access Google Pay and Apple Pay. 

Regardless of the fines, it appears that there are a few, albeit limited, techniques to get around them. 

“Users from Iran can use our exchange, but KYC is not supported,” one KuCoin moderator wrote. “If you wish to proceed without doing KYC, you may still perform all functions on our exchange as normal, even if you are not verified. However, there will be a withdrawal limit of 5 BTC per 24 hours for unverified accounts.”

Furthermore, CEX restrictions on Iranian IP addresses are purportedly bypassed using VPNs. Although one Iranian crypto enthusiast indicated that crypto such as Bitcoin (BTC) is required in the first place to purchase VPNs in Iran, such firms do not accept fiat payments from Iranians due to sanctions.