Key Takeaways
Ukrainian drone strikes on a Yandex knowledge heart coincided with A7A5 stablecoin transfers collapsing.A7A5 customers reported suspended companies, unpaid curiosity, and difficulties redeeming promissory notes as the corporate cited technical issues.A7A5’s buying and selling quantity has almost vanished regardless of a market cap of greater than $450 million.
On the night time of Oct. 7-8, Ukrainian drones struck a Yandex—or “Russia’s Google”—knowledge heart in Sasovo, sending shock waves throughout Russia. A kind of shock waves hit A7A5, a Russian ruble-pegged stablecoin working on Ethereum and Tron that was designed to evade Western sanctions. In the meantime, one other Yandex knowledge heart was struck throughout the identical week.
$450 Million Market Cap and 14 Transfers per Day
Tom Robinson, chief scientist and co-founder of blockchain evaluation firm Elliptic, discovered that A7A5 transactions had collapsed instantly after the Ukrainian strikes. The stablecoin is on the market on exchanges that depend on Yandex’s companies.
A graph shared by Robinson reveals transactions plummeting instantly after the strikes.
In the meantime, on the time of writing, Etherscan reveals round 17,600 A7A5 holders on Ethereum, with simply 18 transfers within the earlier 24 hours. Tron has greater than 30,700 holders and recorded 14 A7A5 transfers over the identical interval. Earlier than Ukraine’s drone strikes—which have been referred to by some commentators as “kinetic sanctions”—the quantity stood at round 600 transfers per day.
In keeping with Robinson, the remaining transactions primarily contain the stablecoin being swapped on decentralized exchanges, equivalent to Uniswap. The platform eliminated A7A5 from its web site in November 2025, however its underlying sensible contracts proceed to assist the token.
Market knowledge aggregators equivalent to Coingecko and Coinmarketcap additionally present that the token’s buying and selling quantity now ranges from zero to round $1,500 per day, regardless of a market capitalization of roughly $455 million to $482 million.
“A7A5’s main use is to bridge rubles to Tether’s USDT, primarily by way of the issuer’s personal change. That service has been hosted by Yandex since Sep 2025. Earlier than that it was hosted in Europe—however sanctions towards A7A5 in Aug 2025 doubtless prompted a change to Russian internet hosting,” Robinson defined.
From ‘Scheduled Work’ to ‘Technical Issues’
In the meantime, on Oct. 8, official A7A5 Telegram channels introduced that some companies may be unavailable due to “scheduled” and “momentary technical work.” The subsequent day, the reason modified from “scheduled work” to “technical issues.”
On Oct. 14, A7A5 mentioned it anticipated to renew operations “quickly.” Customers additionally requested how they may acquire promissory notes for orders that they had already paid for. The corporate mentioned the notes “can solely be redeemed for rubles on the A7-Finance workplace.”
Customers additionally complained that that they had not obtained curiosity on their holdings since Oct. 9. The corporate promised to pay the complete quantity of curiosity owed for all missed days.
The assist bot can be down, leaving customers with solely a telephone quantity to contact the corporate.
“Effectively, the fellows within the West earn their maintain, since they knew the place to strike…” one consumer mentioned in an A7A5 Telegram chat.
The Ongoing Collapse
A7A5 is a ruble-pegged stablecoin issued in Kyrgyzstan and created by A7 LLC. The corporate claims the token is backed by deposits at sanctioned Russian state financial institution Promsvyazbank.
As Bitcoin.com Information reported in June 2026, Stanislav Lazarev, A7’s first deputy common director for gross sales, mentioned that “Western compliance strain” would push Russia towards unbiased digital funds.
In the meantime, in October, following the strikes, A7 launched a brand new service that lets companies pay in USDT, whereas A7 sends the funds to their suppliers by way of odd SWIFT financial institution transfers. In keeping with Robinson, this new service gives A7 “with much-needed USDT, which may very well be used to offer liquidity for its struggling ruble-backed stablecoin, A7A5.”
In July, Elliptic reported that common each day A7A5 transaction volumes had fallen to $24.3 million in June 2026, down 96% from the token’s July 2025 peak, because the U.S., U.Ok., and EU had imposed coordinated sanctions on the token.
