49-year-old Russian IT specialist Yuriy Belenky has been sentenced to 13 years in prison in a terrorist financing case. The reason given was the IT specialist’s donations to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which Russian "law enforcement officers" learned about from the Binance crypto exchange.
49-year-old Russian IT specialist Yuriy Belenky has been sentenced to 13 years in prison in a terrorist financing case. The reason given was the IT specialist’s donations to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which Russian "law enforcement officers" learned about from the Binance crypto exchange.
According to the human rights project "First Department", the court verdict against the director of the IT company DiHouse was handed down the day before.
Belenky will spend the first three years in prison, then be transferred to a strict regime colony. The court also fined him 500,000 rubles and ordered the confiscation of another 126,000 rubles.
The media learned about Belenki’s detention at the end of 2025. Since 2015, the IT expert had been living in Bulgaria, but regularly visited Russia. In September last year, he was detained at Sheremetyevo Airport and later charged with financing terrorism.
The reason for this was Belenky’s donations to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, sent to an account published by blogger Arkady Babchenko. According to human rights activists, Russian "law enforcement" authorities were able to prove the fact of the transfers thanks to a detailed report provided by the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
As previously reported by dev.ua, the cryptocurrency exchange Binance has transferred the personal data and transaction history of Russian IT specialist Yuri Belenky to Russian law enforcement agencies .
