An exchange exit does not close the file

Binance provided Russian authorities with customer records on Yuri Belenkiy, a Russian IT specialist: full name, date of birth, address, telephone number, passport number, and copies of his Russian passport and Bulgarian residency permit.

Belenkiy was detained in September 2025 and remains in custody awaiting trial, charged with financing terrorism. The basis is donations totalling more than $700, sent between January 2023 and March 2024 following an appeal by the exiled Kremlin critic Arkady Babchenko, intended for the Ukrainian military and a group associated with the Azov Brigade.

Binance says it cooperates with lawful law enforcement requests subject to applicable legal, privacy and regulatory requirements. It declined to discuss this case, or whether the disclosure breached European data protection rules.

Why this belongs on an institutional desk

Binance announced its exit from the Russian market in September 2023, saying the operation did not fit its compliance strategy. The records survived the exit, and the disclosure came to light in August 2026 — three years after the withdrawal and covering activity that predates it.

That is the part with general application. Market exit ends the service; it does not end custody of identity documents already collected, nor the jurisdiction that can compel them. Any counterparty assessment that treats withdrawal from a market as the end of exposure in that market is measuring the wrong thing.