A few Russian users who have been trying to deposit fiat currency or buy digital assets on Binance are not able to. They have gotten warning messages stating that cards issued by local Russian banks are not currently supported. Possible good news for users is that Binance is working on making this possible soon, according to an issued statement.
It is worth noting that Binance’s Russia channel has not posted any information about this matter either on Telegram or on Twitter. According to the official Telegram account, company administrators say that Binance operations are being conducted normally and there haven’t been any changes. A Binance Russia spokesperson said that it must be some type of mistake, to CryptoSlate in an interview. He also said that nothing had been blocked and Binance would inform users if something had been changed.
On its own, CryptoSlate was able to confirm that Sherbank cards were being turned down by Binance. On the flip side, Tinkoff cards were not affected and didn’t get disruption of service notifications.
Many sectors of the Russian economy are experiencing problems because of the Ukrainian invasion. In the last weekend in February, many countries announced strict sanctions against Russia. One of these sanctions will affect local Russian banks from having access to SWIFT. The sanctions were chosen carefully to avoid an energy crisis in Germany. There is no doubt that Russian citizens and the country’s economy are already feeling the effect of these sanctions. The ruble is collapsing and there is news that some users are paying $20,000 above market prices to purchase Bitcoin.
