It was pretty frustrating because US citizens are allowed to visit Ukraine and the Venmo request was made from outside of that territory. From the US perspective, Crimea is "Ukraine" and US citizens are allowed to visit Ukraine visa-free. These types of sanctions, in my opinion, go too far, as they affect regular people.
On another note and politics, despite all their issues, Russia really has improved the infrastructure issue in Crimea significantly. New roads and bridges everywhere, new power plants, hospitals, etc. Ukraine completely neglected the region after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Additionally, Crimea is pretty spectacular and has huge potential for foreign tourism. Beautiful coastline, granite mountains that shoot up from the water, interesting geography. And the prices are quite cheap from a western perspective.
Did they forget we have modern inventions, like VPN and airplanes? Localising it to Ukraine (in this context) sounds like they're generally just after the low-hanging fruit (read: the poor who can't afford such things).
VPNs don't help you with bank apps that report your GPS position.
Sanctions aren't particularly excellent at stopping bad actors.
Citizens of Ukraine are just "hanging out" in Ukraine? We're still talking about Ukraine being sanctioned because of Crimea, aren't we? Or have you unintentionally broadened the scope of the discussion?
Wouldn't it be more truthful to say that citizens of a country sanctioned and/or that have become war zones are at an increased chanced to do things (however uncolourful) to survive as a direct result of that very same reality?