The Russia's central bank wanted cryptocurrencies to be banned in its country but the Russian president, Vladimir Putin said bitcoin mining and other crypto mining will be beneficial for Russia. Some people at that time have been supectimg this could be a move by the Russia's president that he is planning to invade Ukraine which will result to sanctions, thinking cryptocurrencies would be a means to evade sanctions and make it economically less effective.
Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov demand crypto exchanges to freeze all Russian accounts so that the sanction can be effective, but most exchanges did not support this. I read few days ago that cryptocurrencies may not help in Russia sanction but FinCEN concluded that Russia can attempt to use cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions.
It seems that the very difficult situation with the use of currency in international trade in Russia, after the Moscow Exchange was prohibited from using the dollar and euro, and trading using Indian rupees and the Chinese yuan showed significant difficulties, is pushing the Kremlin to use cryptocurrency.
The State Duma Committee on the Financial Market approved for adoption in the first reading bill No. 341257-8, which allows the Central Bank to launch an experiment on creating a platform for the use of cryptocurrencies in international payments from September 1.
In Russia, special legal regulation may be introduced for projects in the field of digital innovation. There is currently a ban on the use of digital currency for payments in the country. The bill approved by the committee provides the opportunity to use cryptocurrency “with certain features” within the framework of the EPR. For this purpose, it is established that the Bank of Russia performs the functions of an authorized and regulatory body on EPR issues in the field of digital innovations in the financial market. It is clarified that the EPR program in the field of digital innovations in the financial market may include the use of digital currency as a currency value, conducting transactions with digital currencies as a means of payment in foreign trade, defining the rights and obligations of residents and non-residents when conducting foreign exchange transactions with digital currency , as well as regulation of the activities of currency control authorities and agents in this area.
https://www.interfax.ru/russia/970577Will cryptocurrency save the Russian economy from the impending steep dive into which it plunged itself with the attack on Ukraine? The answer will be very soon.