Among the very few Asian countries to take a stand or even raise their voice, comes Singapore with a great zeal to support Ukraine. Singapore, in a press release released on 5th March, declared that it would impose sanctions and restrictions aimed at constraining Russia’s capacity to conduct war against Ukraine and undermine its sovereignty.
The sanctions ban Singapore’s financial institutions from providing services or entering transactions that would aid the Russian government in procuring funds.
“Digital payment token service providers are specifically prohibited from facilitating transactions that could help to circumvent these financial measures”, said the foreign ministry with regards to cryptocurrencies.
Implications of this sanction are that any sort of crypto or NFT transaction with Russia are prohibited.
These measures apply to all financial institutions in Singapore, including banks, finance companies, insurers, capital markets intermediaries, securities exchanges and payment service providers.
Singapore will also impose a ban on the export of the following items to Russia:
- all items in the Military Goods List and
- all items in the “Electronics”, “Computers”, and “Telecommunications and Information Security” categories of the Dual-Use Goods List of the Strategic Goods (Control) Order 2021.
This move aims to not provide Russia with items that can be used as weapons and be used to inflict harm.
On one side, where Singapore bans cryptocurrency transactions with Russia, Ukraine on the other hand, has garnered support from all over the world, with cryptocurrency donations in various innovative ways such as the auction of its flag NFT or donations or UNICEF.
Recently, crypto exchange Bybit donated $100,000 in Bitcoin to UNICEF to help scale up life-saving programs to ensure there is immediate help for children and families in need in Ukraine.
