A7A5, a ruble-pegged stablecoin designed to circumvent Western sanctions, has not paid interest to holders since October 9, after Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian data centers hosting its exchange service sent daily transfers tumbling to roughly 61 across two blockchains.

Ukrainian drones knocked out Yandex's Sasovo data center on October 8

Ukrainian drones set fire to a Yandex data center in Sasovo, in Russia's Ryazan region, overnight on October 7–8, and Yandex has suspended the site. Downdetector registered more than 1,300 complaints concerning Yandex Cloud, Yandex Documents, and Yandex Tables, while shares of Yandex fell more than 3.4% on the Moscow Exchange.

It was the first confirmed strike on a Russian data center since the 2022 invasion, and a second Yandex facility was hit the same week. Russian forces, meanwhile, have struck at least eight major data centers in Kyiv since late September.

A7A5 itself settles on Tron and Ethereum. Tom Robinson, co-founder and chief scientist of blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, [wrote on X](https://x.com/tomrobin/status/2109583434922307697 on October 12 that activity declined "not because" the token depends on the facilities "but because its exchange service does."

The outage highlights an unusual fragility for a blockchain-based asset: the token itself keeps settling on public chains, but the exchange service behind nearly all of its activity depends on physical hosting inside a country at war — a provider now hit twice in one week.

Etherscan shows roughly 17,600 holders of A7A5 on Ethereum, with 23 transfers in 24 hours, while on Tron 38 transfers moved among more than 30,700 holders. Before the strikes, about 600 transfers a day were taking place. What remains is mostly swaps on decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap, Robinson said. Uniswap removed A7A5 from its website in November 2025, though its smart contracts continue to support the token.

CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap value A7A5 at approximately $455 million to $483 million, with daily volume anywhere from zero to around $1,500.

Promissory notes now redeem only at the A7-Finance office

Users report that interest payments stopped on October 9. A7A5 has promised to pay all interest due for each day missed. When users asked how to obtain promissory notes for paid orders, the company said the notes "can only be redeemed for rubles at the A7-Finance office." The support bot is down as well, leaving only a phone number.

A7A5's Telegram channels first blamed scheduled technical work on October 8, then technical problems a day later. On October 14, the company said it anticipated resuming operations "soon." For holders, the immediate milestones are the resumption the company anticipates and the back-pay of interest it has pledged for each missed day; in the meantime, their redemption route runs through a single office and their only support channel is a phone number.

Robinson said the exchange's principal job is converting rubles into Tether's USDT. Yandex has hosted the service since September 2025, and it ran in Europe before that. Sanctions imposed on A7A5 in August 2025 likely drove it onto Russian hosting, he said.

A7 launched a service in October allowing businesses to make payments in USDT, sending funds to their suppliers via regular SWIFT transfers. Robinson said the service's A7 USDT could supply liquidity to A7A5.

A7A5 was reportedly created by Russian company A7 and is issued by Kyrgyzstan-registered firm Old Vector, Cryptopolitan reported. A7 says the token is backed by deposits held at Promsvyazbank, a sanctioned Russian state lender.

Average daily A7A5 volume diminished to $24.3 million in June 2026, down 96% from its July 2025 peak, following coordinated US, UK, and EU sanctions. Cryptopolitan reports that the EU's 20th sanctions package in April included a Kyrgyz exchange trading A7A5.

According to Cryptopolitan, Russia sanctioned British teenager Alexander Browder in June after his A7A5 research shaped UK sanctions.

Source: Cryptopolitan