Tether, a stablecoin operator, has frozen $27 million in USDt on the sanctioned Russian Garantex crypto exchange, leading to the suspension of operations. Garantex announced on its official Telegram channel that Tether blocked wallets worth over 2.5 billion rubles, prompting the exchange to temporarily halt all services, including withdrawals. The European Union imposed sanctions on Garantex as part of the 16th package of sanctions against Russia's actions in Ukraine. Regulators in the US were the first to sanction Garantex, with the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control imposing sanctions in April 2022. Cointelegraph contacted Tether for a response on the freezing of Garantex wallets but did not receive a reply at the time of publication.