Russia sanctions British teenager for A7A5 stablecoin report

Russia sanctioned a British teenager for his role in exposing the alleged use of ruble-pegged stablecoin A7A5 in funding the war effort against Ukraine. Alexander Browder, 17, penned a report for the foreign policy and national security think tank The Henry Jackson Society, which the Russian Foreign Ministry described as spreading "defamatory speculations and false information." Browder, who is the son of Vladimir Putin critic Bill Browder, was sanctioned along with three other U.K. nationals and Washington Post reporter Catherine Belton. He called it "a badge of honour" in a post on X on Wednesday. The A7A5 stablecoin was designed to bypass sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — though getting sanctioned by Moscow for exposing sanctions evasion carries a certain on-chain irony.