A Russian man has been charged with treason after the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) caught him donating crypto to the Ukrainian militants.
The unnamed individual was sent to a maximum security penal colony under the charge of "providing financial assistance to a Ukrainian terrorist organisation.
Donation to a terrorist organisation that could endanger Russia's national security
The man, was a resident of the Mirninsky district of Yakutia, a city in the far east of Russia. The FSB revealed that the man was an employee of a diamond mining company, and was born in 1988.
The agency also said that the recipient of the donation wasn't any innocuous organisation, but a specific unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that used the funds to conduct reconnaissance and subversive activities against the security of the Russian Federation.
The FSB also claimed that the man was part of the terrorist organisation, and had known and joined the organisation after connecting with the unit members on a social network platform. He was also instructed by the Ukrainian officers that he had met online to make the donations through a crypto wallet.
Because of the severe ramifications of his actions to the national security, the man was under investigation under Article 275 of the Russian criminal code with a possibility of being charged with the highest offense of treason.
Russia's crackdown on foreign donations
Russian authorities has been cracking down on foreign donations. Just earlier this month, FSB officers arrested another man in Yenakiieve on suspicion of treason.
Similarly, the FSB also discovered that that man was making multiple donations to Ukrainian Armed Forces through an electronic wallet.
The FSB also previously convicted several individuals on similar "high treason" crypto-related charges. In each of those cases, the suspect allegedly transferred funds in the form of crypto. The convicted offenders include a Moscow-based Scientist and two residents of the Far Eastern region of Khabarovsk Krai.