The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury has imposed sanctions against a VPN service provider and its administrator, 45-year-old Ukrainian citizen Dmytro Rashevsky.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury has imposed sanctions against a VPN service provider and its administrator, 45-year-old Ukrainian citizen Dmytro Rashevsky.
The Ukrainian and his service, called First VPN Service (1VPNS), are accused of knowingly providing cyberattack tools to ransomware groups and other cybercriminals who have attacked American companies and government agencies, OFAC reported .
Along with Rashevsky, Belarusian citizen Yevgeny Silaev was sanctioned for selling so-called "cryptors" — special software for disguising viruses as safe programs, which allowed them to bypass antivirus protection.
According to the US Treasury Department, Dmytro Rashevsky used aliases, including "Maxim Sorin" and "Roman Chabanenko."
"Rashevsky used false identities to purchase server equipment and infrastructure from hosting companies. Under normal circumstances, these companies would have refused to deal with him due to numerous complaints from Internet service providers about illegal activities conducted from 1VPNS servers," the US Treasury Department noted.
The First VPN service itself has been operating since 2014. It was advertised as a platform that: does not keep any identification or user activity; does not store personal data; and fundamentally does not cooperate with law enforcement agencies to stop illegal activity on rented servers.
In May 2026, the activities of First VPN were completely blocked and eliminated as part of a joint operation by law enforcement agencies in Europe and North America.
US intelligence agencies have found that the services of the Ukrainian service were actively used by leading hacker groups. They purchased access to 1VPNS to hide their real location during cyberattacks; to download malicious software without being noticed; and to manage stolen confidential data of American companies.
Among the victims of hackers who used the Ukrainian infrastructure were American private businesses, financial institutions, hospitals, and even local governments in the US. The total losses from ransomware attacks, which operated with the support of sanctioned individuals, are estimated at billions of dollars.
