russian oligarch yacht for sale

Photos show the luxury mega yachts that belong to Russian oligarchs — some of whom have hidden their ships as the UK ramps up sanctions.

• Sanctions targeting Russian oligarchs threaten their luxury assets — including their mega yachts.
• Many countries have implemented sanctions targeting Putin and Russian oligarchs following Russia's attack on Ukraine.
• Insider compiled a photo list of some of the luxury vessels.

Russian billionaires' assets — including their megayachts — are in danger of being seized as countries continue to impose sanctions on Russian oligarchs in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

US President Joe Biden announced that the US will make a substantial effort to seize Russian oligarchs' assets.

"We are joining with our European allies to find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets," Biden said in his State of The Union address on March 1. "We are coming for your ill-begotten gains."

Since the US is not in "armed conflict" with Russia it may be legally tricky to seize assets like yachts, Insider reported . 

"The threshold for seizing assets under sanctions is that the US has to be in armed conflict with the owner of the assets," Brian O'Toole, an economic sanctions expert, tweeted last Friday. "The idea of turning Russian corruption into Ukrainian assistance is lovely but this idea is illegal, period."

It can also be difficult to find out who the owners of these yachts are.

Offshore companies typically own the luxury vessels, but enough "public speculation" pointing to a Russian oligarch as an owner is likely "sufficient for a seizure," Insider reported . 

Many of the oligarchs moved their yachts to places where they can't be seized, such as the Maldives, which does not have an extradition treaty with the US.

Insider has compiled a list of photos with mega yachts linked to Russian oligarchs.

Galactica Super Nova

Amid sanctions and seizures targeting Russian billionaires, Galactica Super Nova — said to be linked to the CEO of Russian oil firm Lukoil — is no longer detectable via ship tracker site MarineTraffic , The Daily Beast reported Thursday. 

The superyacht — whose owner is named Vagit Alekperov — had just been in Montenegro last week, Insider reported .

Alekperov is not currently the target of any sanctions. 

The yacht is almost 230 feet long and can hold up to 12 guests and 16 crew members, according to the ship maker Heesen Yachts .

The ship also has a helicopter pad that can turn into an outdoor movie theatre, also according to the ship maker.

The Amore Vero

France seized Amore Vero, a 281-foot megayacht linked to oligarch and politician Igor Sechin, on March 3.

The yacht, Amore Vero, is estimated to have a value of $120 million . It has a swimming pool that doubles as a helicopter pad and a private deck for its owner, according to Oceana , the ship maker.

Per The Wall Street Journal , officials believe that Amore Vero is "owned by a company whose majority shareholder was Mr. Sechin," though the outlet does not provide the name of the company.

Sechin is the CEO of Rosneft, Russia's oil giant, and a former deputy prime minister. A known Putin ally , he was sanctioned by both the EU and the US before France seized his yacht last week .

Sechin was one of seven oligarchs sanctioned by the UK on Thursday. 

People in Russia have referred to Sechin as "Darth Vader" and "the scariest man on Earth," according to The Guardian .

Alisher Usmanov has been sanctioned by the EU, the US, the UK, and Switzerland. His boat remains in Germany, but the country says it hasn't seized it.

Usmanov's Dilbar is "is the largest motor yacht in the world by gross tonnage," according to Lürssen , the German ship's maker.

It's 512-foot long and weighs 15,917 tons. The ship has been docked in Germany for months undergoing a "refitting," but last week Forbes reported that it was unable to leave the dock.

Germany, however, has denied that it formally seized Dilbar.

Forbes said that "the German federal customs agency is the 'responsible enforcement authority' and would have to issue an export waiver for the yacht to leave, and that 'no yacht leaves port that is not allowed to do so.'" 

Still, multiple outlets reported that Usmanov has fired the crew on the Dilbar.

The Uzbekistan-born oligarch is a supporter of Putin. 

"I am proud that I know Putin, and the fact that everybody does not like him is not Putin's problem," Usmanov told Forbes  in a 2010 interview. 

Suleyman Kerimov was sanctioned by the US, and his son, Said Kerimov, owns ICE. The superyacht is worth is an estimated $170 million.

The Kerimov family owns the majority of Polyus Gold, Russia's biggest gold producer .

ICE was dubbed "Superyacht of the Year" in 2006 at the World Super Yacht Awards, according to Boat International . It is approximately 300 feet and has its own resident helicopter, according to Club Yacht .

Quantum Blue

Sergey Galitsky's ship, Quantum Blue, has an estimated value of $250 million and is last known to be docked in Monaco.

Galitsky is the founder of one of Russia's largest supermarket chains, Magnit.

His name is not currently on the list of sanctioned Russian oligarchs,

Though he also is not the target of any current sanctions, Vladimir Potanin's superyacht, Nirvana, is one of at least four ships docked in the Maldives .

Potanin is the Former First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia and was a longtime trustee for the Guggenheim museum before stepping down on March 2, according to The New York Times . 

Nirvana is not Potanin's only superyacht, he also owns another named Barbara, according to Fortune .

Alexander Abramov's Titan, Alexei Mordashovis' Nord, and Oleg Deripaska's Clio are also located in the Maldives.

At 533 feet long, Roman Abramovich's Eclipse was the largest yacht on the globe until 2013 when the 590-foot Azzam overthrew it. 

Abramovich, once Russia's richest man , is the departing owner of Chelsea FC soccer club. He was sanctioned by the UK on Thursday along with six other oligarchs, Insider reported .

The luxury boat has a host of amenities, including two helicopter pads, a missile detection system, and a swimming pool more than 50 feet long. It also has space for up to 36 guests and 70 crew members, according to Yacht Harbour .

Insider previously reported that it is currently docked in the Caribbean .

Another yacht named Solaris is linked to Abramovich. The vessel, worth approximately $600 million, left Spain Tuesday after having been under repair since late 2021, Insider reported.

Solaris is 460 feet and can host a total of 36 guests, according to SuperYachtFan .

Tango, owned by the US-sanctioned Viktor Vekselberg, is currently located in Palma, Spain.

Tango can host up to 14 people and is 254 feet long, won the 2012 World Superyacht Awards, and has an estimated worth of $120 million, according to SuperYachtFan .

Vekselberg is a Ukrainian-born businessman who owns Renova, a Russian conglomerate, according to The Guardian .

He was one of nearly two dozen Russian oligarchs and officials that the US sanctioned on Friday.

The US Treasury Department claims that he has close ties with Putin, and has announced that assets such as his $90 million jet and his superyacht Tango have been frozen, Insider reported .

Graceful, a yacht reported to belong to Russian President Vladimir Putin, left Germany just before his invasion of Ukraine, Insider reported in early February.

—Manu Gómez (@GDarkconrad) February 9, 2022

Graceful is 270 feet long and has a saloon, gym, spa, library, and an indoor pool nearly 50 feet long that doubles as a dance floor.

Scheherazade

A mystery yacht remains untouched as the owner remains a mystery.

The owner of the 459-foot Scheherazade is suspected to be a Russian billionaire, though the owner was never publically identified, The New York Times reported .

Many people believe it belongs to Vladimir Putin, nicknaming the vessel "Putin's Yacht."

SuperYachtFan estimates the ship's value sits at $700 million.

Stella Maris

Stella Maris is linked to oil and gas tycoon Rashid Sardarov. It was last seen in Nice, France, according to The Washington Post .

The luxury vessel is priced at $75 million, is 237 feet long, and can hold up to 14 guests, per SuperYachtFan .

Sardarov is not being sanctioned. 

Sailing Yacht A

Sailing Yacht A is believed to belong to Andrey Melnichenko. The boat was seized by Spanish officials Saturday, Reuters reported .

The ship is more than 465 feet long and can hold up to 20 guests, according to SuperYachtFan . The website says that Sailing Yacht A also features an underwater observation area and has a value of more than $500 million.

Melnichenko is an EU-sanctioned Russian billionaire who works in coal and fertilizers, according to Forbes . The magazine also reported that he owns a second yacht, Motor Yacht A, which is similar to a submarine. 

Oligarch Gennady Timchenko's superyacht "Lena" was seized in the port of Sanremo, Italy on March 5, Reuters reported.

Timchenko is the owner of a private investment group, Volga Group and a shareholder of Bank Rossiya. The oligarch has been sanctioned by the EU, which describes him as a "long-time acquaintance of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin."

Timchenko was also sanctioned by the UK on February 22. 

The superyacht is valued at around 50 million euros ($54 million), Reuters reported. It has fold-down terraces, as well as an "owner's suite" which opens out onto the sea with "gull-wing doors," according to its manufacturer, Sanlorenzo.

Italian authorities also seized a $71 million super-yacht belonging to one of the wealthiest men in Russia , Alexei Mordashov. 

The 215-ft "Lady M" superyacht was seized in the Port of Imperia, northern Italy, a source confirmed to Reuters.

The yacht can accommodate up to six guests on and also has accommodation for four crew members, per the Superyacht Times .

The oligarch, who is the chairman of steel mining company, Severstal, has also been sanctioned by the EU, which says Mordashov is "benefiting from his links with Russian decision-makers." Mordashov has insisted he has "absolutely nothing to do" with Russia's attack on Ukraine. 

The Oligarch moved $1.3 billion worth of shares in travel company, TUI, to an offshore tax haven on the day he was hit by sanctions, Insider's Huileng Tan previously reported. 

He was also added to the UK government's sanctions list on March 15.

Some superyachts belonging to Russian billionaires are currently seeking refuge in the Maldives, including a yacht owned by billionaire Oleg Deripaska, Reuters reported.

The billionaire, who is also the founder of one of Russia's largest industrial groups, Basic Element, was added to the UK's sanctions list on March 10.

Also built by Lürssen, the superyacht - which is around 238 feet long - can accommodate 18 guests in nine cabins, per Superyacht Fan.

The superyacht Valerie - worth $140 million - was seized in Barcelona on Monday, Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, said on La Sexta television, per Reuters.  

Sanchez did not confirm the owner of the yacht, but two sources confirmed to Reuters that it belonged to Sergei Chemezov, who is said to be a close ally of Putin.

The oligarch, who was previously a KGB spy with Putin in the former Soviet Union, recently said that Russia would emerge victorious from Western sanctions, Reuters previously reported . 

Chemezov, who is the CEO of Russian defense conglomerate Rostec was added to the US sanctions list on March 3. 

His yacht is 279 feet long and can accommodate 17 guests in eight suites, per Superyacht Fan.

Crescent, most likely owned by Igor Sechin but also rumored to belong to Putin, was the third yacht Spain seized as the West ramps up sanctions, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The superyacht is 443-feet long and costs an estimated $600 million, according to  SuperyachtFan, which also says the vessel hosts a retractable helicopter hangar and a large pool with a glass bottom.

Lady Anastasia

Lady Anastasia is owned by Russian oligarch Alexander Mikheyev but was seized by Spain on Tuesday, according to Reuters . 

The boat is almost 160 feet long and can hold up to 10 guests, according to Yacht Harbour .

Mikheyev, who was sanctioned by the EU, is the head of a helicopters division under Rostec, New York Mag reported .

• Main content

Advertisement

Supported by

Seizing an Oligarch’s Assets Is One Thing. Giving Them to Ukraine Is Another.

It could take years for Russian assets seized by the United States to be permanently confiscated and sold to benefit the Ukrainian people. The Biden administration wants to speed up the process.

• Share full article

By Matthew Goldstein

The U.S. government was so pleased with its swift seizure of a Russian oligarch’s 255-foot yacht on the Mediterranean island of Majorca last month that it posted a video on YouTube of the moment F.B.I. agents and Spanish authorities clambered up the gangplank. The $90 million yacht owned by Viktor Vekselberg, called the Tango, was the government’s first big prize in a campaign against billionaires with close ties to the Kremlin.

The Tango is just a sliver of the $1 billion in yachts, planes and artwork — not to mention hundreds of millions in cash — that the United States has identified as belonging to wealthy allies of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, since the invasion of Ukraine. U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui, who approved the seizure, called the pursuit of the yacht by a new Justice Department team called task force kleptocapture “just the beginning of the reckoning that awaits those who would facilitate Putin’s atrocities.”

The reckoning may take a while.

Seizing assets, whether a yacht or a bank account, is the easy part. To permanently confiscate them, the government must usually navigate a potentially cumbersome process known as civil forfeiture, which requires proving to a judge that the assets were obtained from the proceeds of a crime or through money laundering. Only then does the government actually own the assets, and have the power to liquidate them.

All that can take years, especially if the former owner is inclined to fight the forfeiture action in court.

Hoping to speed things up — and quickly get the proceeds from seized assets turned over to the Ukrainian government — the White House announced a plan last week that would make it easier for U.S. authorities to go after some oligarch assets through an administrative procedure led by the Treasury Department. Although it has not provided details of its plan, administration officials said the new procedure will provide adequate due process and allow for an “expedited” review by a federal court.

The White House proposal would significantly change the way the government handles high-dollar asset seizures. Generally, administrative forfeiture is used in lower-profile cases, intended for assets worth $500,000 or less. Such efforts are not really designed for luxury homes or massive yachts, let alone the huge sums of money that wealthy Russians are believed to have stashed away in U.S. bank accounts or invested with hedge funds and private equity firms.

“The idea of a yacht or jet valued in the hundreds of millions seized and liquidated administratively is new territory,” said Franklin Monsour Jr., a former federal prosecutor and a white collar defense lawyer with Orrick in New York.

Mr. Monsour said the administration and Congress may be banking that many Russian oligarchs will not muster a legal challenge to a new, expedited process because that would risk subjecting themselves to U.S. jurisdiction.

“It will likely be without challenge,” he said. “And the government knows that.”

Even if prosecutors are forced to proceed in some cases through the more typical civil forfeiture process, the litigation might go faster than normal for that same reason, Mr. Monsour said.

There are indications the pace of seizures is picking up. On Thursday, prosecutors said that authorities in Fiji working with the task force seized a $300 million mega yacht belonging to Suleiman Kerimov, a Russian gold magnate. But in a sign the task force may be unwilling in some cases to expose its tradecraft in tracking down assets, the 24-page affidavit presented to a federal judge in support of the seizure was heavily redacted.

The more pricey assets the government seizes, the more reason it has to speed up the forfeiture process: Luxury property must be properly maintained, otherwise their value will drop before they can be sold off to someone else in the small pool of people who can afford them.

“For yachts that are languishing in ports, there will be assets spent to maintain the vehicles,” said Daniel Tannebaum, an expert on financial crimes at the consulting firm Oliver Wyman and former Treasury official. “Some of these assets can sit for an extremely long time.”

But authorities in the U.S. are looking to do more than just strip oligarchs of their prized possessions. Elizabeth Rosenberg, assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes at Treasury, said one goal is to “undermine the financial architecture that Russia uses to move money.”

Over the years, Russia and its oligarchs have become skilled at using a parade of shell companies in places like the British Virgin Islands to move money from Cyprus to the Cayman Islands to Jersey, in the Channel Islands, all places with a history of being seen by investors as tax havens. The task force will be looking for evidence of oligarchs taking steps to illegally evade sanctions by surreptitiously transferring money and property to an unsanctioned person or business entity.

Just last month, federal prosecutors in Manhattan filed criminal charges against Konstantin Malofeyev for illegally transferring $10 million from a U.S. bank to a business associate in Greece. Mr. Malofeyev, who recently described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “holy war,” was the subject of a sanctions order by the Treasury Department in 2014 after Russia’s invasion of Crimea, a part of Ukraine that it ultimately annexed.

In October, federal agents raided a mansion belonging to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska in Washington and seized a wide array of assets including a Diego Rivera painting. Authorities took action in response to suspicions that Mr. Deripaska had been trying to evade sanctions by moving some of his money around, Bloomberg reported last month.

U.S. authorities have pursued assets belonging to Mr. Deripaska, an industrialist with close ties to Mr. Putin, since a sanction order in 2018 that was partly in response to Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election. A year later, Mr. Deripaska sued the U.S. government, claiming that the sanctions designation was based on rumor and had rendered him “radioactive” in the business community. Six weeks ago, a federal appellate court rejected his claims .

Since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February, the Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on more than 530 well-connected Russians. Andrew Adams, the federal prosecutor directing the new kleptocapture task force, said much of his team’s early work has involved “unprecedented” sharing of information about those individuals with U.S. financial firms, Treasury officials and overseas law enforcement groups.

Even without taking possession of an asset, the task force can make it difficult for the owner to make use of it, said Mr. Adams, a veteran federal prosecutor in Manhattan who has focused on money laundering and asset forfeiture cases.

“In the past, I would consider a win to be getting a conviction,” Mr. Adams said. “Now it could be getting an insurance company to cancel policy coverage for an oligarch’s yacht.”

Although it’s possible for the government to seize assets as part of a criminal case, Mr. Adams said, the government was unlikely to take that route. Doing so would require the arrest and conviction of their owners — an even more daunting process than the civil process or the expedited administrative procedure that the White House is considering.

But even the civil forfeiture process requires the government to show evidence of criminal conduct.

In approving the seizure of the Tango, Judge Faruqui said federal authorities had shown probable cause that Mr. Vekselberg had purchased the yacht — held through a series of shell companies — with “illicit proceeds and laundered funds.” Permanent confiscation will require prosecutors to establish that Mr. Vekselberg actually committed bank fraud, money laundering or some other crime.

Although the United States imposed sanctions on wealthy Russians soon after the invasion, global efforts to seize their assets have mostly played out in Europe and the Caribbean.

The European Union has frozen about $30 billion assets traced to Russian oligarchs since February. A few weeks ago, British officials said they had frozen some $13 billion in assets tied to just one of them: Roman Abramovich. Mr. Abramovich, one of Russia’s wealthiest men and the longtime owner of London’s Chelsea Football Club, has faced significant pressure from British officials. He agreed to part with the team in March as officials were moving to impose sanctions, and the club said on Friday that it had accepted a $3 billion bid from a consortium of buyers. The proceeds from the sale — the highest price in history for a sports team — will be placed in a frozen British bank account.

Mr. Abramovich, who has invested billions of dollars with offshore funds managed by U.S. firms and has an interest in several steel mills in the United States, has not been sanctioned by American officials, in part because he has served as an intermediary in negotiations between Ukraine and Russia . Mr. Adams, the leader of the kleptocapture task force, declined to discuss the matter.

But he did offer an explanation for why the Russian oligarchs his team is focused on seem to have fewer assets in the United States than in other countries: The sanctions that Treasury imposed following Russia’s invasion of Crimea seven years ago scared some away.

“We have had sanctions in place since 2014,” said Mr. Adams. “We have not been a friendly country to park your money in.”

Matthew Goldstein covers Wall Street and white collar crime and housing issues. More about Matthew Goldstein

Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine

News and Analysis

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has signed into law three measures aimed at replenishing the ranks of his country’s depleted army, including lowering the draft age to 25 .

With continued American aid to Ukraine stalled and against the looming prospect of a second Trump presidency, NATO officials are looking to take more control of directing military support from Ukraine’s allies  — a role that the United States has played for the past two years.

Exploding drones hit an oil refinery and munitions factory far to the east of Moscow, in what Ukrainian media and military experts said was among the longest-range strikes with Ukrainian drones so far in the war .

Turning to Marketing: Ukraine’s troop-starved brigades have started their own recruitment campaigns  to fill ranks depleted in the war with Russia.

Symbolism or Strategy?: Ukrainians say that defending places with little strategic value is worth the cost in casualties and weapons  because the attacking Russians pay an even higher price. American officials aren’t so sure.

Elaborate Tales: As the war grinds on, the Kremlin has created increasingly complex fabrications online  to discredit Zelensky and undermine Ukraine’s support in the West.

How We Verify Our Reporting

Our team of visual journalists analyzes satellite images, photographs , videos and radio transmissions  to independently confirm troop movements and other details.

We monitor and authenticate reports on social media, corroborating these with eyewitness accounts and interviews. Read more about our reporting efforts .

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

National Security

A russian oligarch's $90 million yacht is seized as part of u.s. sanctions.

A Civil Guard stands by the yacht called Tango in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on Monday. U.S. federal agents and Spain's Civil Guard are searching the yacht owned by a Russian oligarch. Francisco Ubilla/AP hide caption

A Civil Guard stands by the yacht called Tango in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on Monday. U.S. federal agents and Spain's Civil Guard are searching the yacht owned by a Russian oligarch.

Spanish officials have seized a Russian-owned luxury yacht in Mallorca at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice. It was the first coordinated seizure under the department's Task Force KleptoCapture, which is tasked with enforcing the sweeping sanctions placed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

The $90 million 255-foot yacht, named Tango, is owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who heads the Renova Group, a Russian conglomerate with interests in metallurgy, machinery, energy, telecommunications as well as others.

"Today marks our taskforce's first seizure of an asset belonging to a sanctioned individual with close ties to the Russian regime. It will not be the last," said Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement. "Together, with our international partners, we will do everything possible to hold accountable any individual whose criminal acts enable the Russian government to continue its unjust war."

The seizure was performed by Spanish Guardia Civil officers with assistance from the FBI.

U.S. officials allege that the Tango has been owned continuously by Vekselberg since 2011 and that he used shell companies to " obfuscate his interest in the Tango ," the Justice Department said in a press release.

The release cites alleges bank fraud and money laundering as justification for the seizure, highlighting U.S. bank payments for support and maintenance of the vessel — including a December 2020 stay at a luxury water villa resort in the Maldives.

• Justice Department

U.S. seizes mega yacht owned by oligarch with close ties to Putin

PALMA DE MALLORCA, Spain — The U.S. government seized a mega yacht in Spain owned by an oligarch with close ties to the Russian president on Monday, the first in the government’s sanctions enforcement initiative to “seize and freeze” giant boats and other pricey assets of Russian elites .

Spain’s Civil Guard and U.S. federal agents descended on the yacht at the Marina Real in the port of Palma de Mallorca, the capital of Spain’s Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea. Associated Press reporters at the scene saw police going in and out of the boat on Monday morning.

The seizure was confirmed by two people familiar with the matter. The people could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity. A Spanish Civil Guard spokesman confirmed that officers from the Spanish police body and from the FBI were at the marina searching the vessel Monday morning and said further details would be released later.

A Civil Guard source told The Associated Press that the immobilized yacht is Tango, a 78-meter (254-feet) vessel that carries Cook Islands flag and that  Superyachtfan.com , a specialized website that tracks the world’s largest and most exclusive recreational boats, values at $120 million. The source was also not authorized to be named in media reports and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.

The yacht is among the assets linked to Viktor Vekselberg, a billionaire and close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who heads the Moscow-based Renova Group, a conglomerate encompassing metals, mining, tech and other assets, according to U.S. Treasury Department documents. All of Vekselberg’s assets in the U.S. are frozen and U.S. companies are forbidden from doing business with him and his entities.

The move is the first time the U.S. government has seized an oligarch’s yacht since Attorney General Merrick Garland and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen assembled a task force known as REPO — short for Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs — as an effort to enforce sanctions after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.

Vekselberg has long had ties to the U.S. including a green card he once held and homes in New York and Connecticut. The Ukrainian-born businessman built his fortune by investing in the aluminum and oil industries in the post-Soviet era.

Vekselberg was also questioned in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and has worked closely with his American cousin, Andrew Intrater, who heads the New York investment management firm Columbus Nova.

Vekselberg and Intrater were thrust into the spotlight in the Mueller probe after the attorney for adult film star Stormy Daniels released a memo that claimed $500,000 in hush money was routed through Columbus Nova to a shell company set up by Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen. Columbus Nova denied that Vekselberg played any role in its payments to Cohen.

Vekselberg and Intrater met with Cohen at Trump Tower, one of several meetings between members of Trump’s inner circle and high-level Russians during the 2016 campaign and transition.

The 64-year-old mogul founded Renova Group more than three decades ago. The group holds the largest stake in United Co. Rusal, Russia’s biggest aluminum producer, among other investments.

Vekselberg was first sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018, and again in March of this year, shortly after the invasion of Ukraine began. Vekselberg has also been sanctioned by authorities in the United Kingdom.

The U.S. Justice Department has also launched a sanctions enforcement task force known as KleptoCapture , which also aims to enforce financial restrictions in the U.S. imposed on Russia and its billionaires, working with the FBI, Treasury and other federal agencies. That task force will also target financial institutions and entities that have helped oligarchs move money to dodge sanctions.

The White House has said that many allied countries, including German, the U.K, France, Italy and others are involved in trying to collect and share information against Russians targeted for sanctions. In his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden warned oligarch that the U.S. and European allies would “find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets.”

“We are coming for your ill-begotten gains,” he said.

Wednesday’s capture is not the first time Spanish authorities have been involved in the seizure of a Russian oligarch’s superyacht. Officials there said they had seized a vessel valued at over $140 million owned by the CEO of a state-owned defense conglomerate and a close Putin ally.

French authorities have also seized superyachts, including one believed to belong to Igor Sechin, a Putin ally who runs Russian oil giant Rosneft, which has been on the U.S. sanctions list since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

Italy has also seized several yachts and other assets.

Italian financial police moved quickly seizing the superyacht “Lena” belonging to Gennady Timchenko, an oligarch close to Putin, in the port of San Remo; the 65-meter (215-foot) “Lady M” owned by Alexei Mordashov in nearby Imperia, featuring six suites and estimated to be worth 65 million euros; as well as villas in Tuscany and Como, according to government officials.

Para reported from Madrid and Balsamo reported from Washington.

• Environment
• Road to Net Zero
• Art & Design
• Film & TV
• Music & On-stage
• Pop Culture
• Fashion & Beauty
• Home & Garden
• Things to do
• Combat Sports
• Horse Racing
• Beyond the Headlines
• Trending Middle East
• Business Extra
• Culture Bites
• Year of Elections
• Pocketful of Dirhams
• Books of My Life
• Iraq: 20 Years On

16 superyachts owned by Russian oligarchs

Western sanctions over moscow's invasion of ukraine led to many luxury vessels being detained in europe.

Two superyachts linked to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich were spotted on the Turkish coast on Tuesday, 'Eclipse' and 'My Solaris'. Mr Abramovich is among several wealthy Russians added to an EU blacklist as governments act to seize their yachts and other luxury assets. AP

Live updates: follow the latest news on Russia-Ukraine

Several luxury yachts owned by wealthy Russians have been detained across Europe this month.

It comes after the West imposed sanctions on oligarchs over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine .

Some have taken evasive action – two such superyachts linked to billionaire Roman Abramovich were spotted approaching the Turkish coast on Tuesday. A group of Ukrainians tried to stop one of the yachts from docking in Turkey.

Chelsea FC owner Mr Abramovich is one of several oligarchs who were added to an EU blacklist last week as governments acted to seize yachts and other luxury assets owned by the billionaires.

Western sanctions resulted in many large vessels relocating from Europe in the past few weeks. Several have headed to places such as the Maldives, which have no extradition treaty with the US.

Where is the Abramovich-owned yacht heading?

Mr Abramovich's yacht Eclipse was seen heading towards Marmaris on Tuesday, according to data compiled by monitoring site Marine Traffic, which was seen by Reuters.

The previous day, his superyacht Solaris was moored in Bodrum, about 80 kilometres from Marmaris, data showed, after skirting waters of EU countries.

There was no suggestion Mr Abramovich was on board either of the yachts.

Ukrainians attempt to stop Abramovich's yacht docking in Turkey

Which yachts have been detained?

On Monday, a superyacht linked to another Russian billionaire was detained by authorities after docking in Gibraltar.

The Axioma , believed to belong to Dmitrievich Pumpyansky, moored at Gibraltar on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, Reuters TV footage showed.

Mr Pumpyansky, who is under UK and EU sanctions, owns Russia's largest steel pipe maker TMK. Data shows the 72-metre vessel is owned by a British Virgin Islands holding company called Pyrene investments, Reuters reported. An article published as part of the Panama Papers leaks names Mr Pumpyansky as a beneficiary of the holding.

On March 12, the world's biggest sailing yacht, called Sailing Yacht A and owned by Russian billionaire Andrey Igorevich Melnichenko , was seized by Italian police.

Several other luxury yachts have also been detained across Europe, including in Gibraltar, Mallorca in Spain's Balearic Islands and the French coast.

Here are 16 superyachts linked to wealthy Russians

1. Eclipse , a superyacht linked to sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich , was this week spotted heading in the direction of Marmaris in Turkey.

2. Solaris , belonging to Mr Abramovich , moored in Bodrum at the start of the week.

3. The Axioma superyacht, belonging to Russian oligarch Dmitrievich Pumpyansky , who is on the EU's list of sanctioned Russians, was detained by authorities after docking in Gibraltar on Monday.

4. The Crescent , which was seized by the Spanish government in Tarragona, Spain, on March 17. The ship's owner is not publicly known, although it is believed to belong to Russian Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft Oil in Moscow.

5. Ragnar , owned by former KGB officer and Russian oligarch Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, who is not on the EU sanctions list.

6. Tango , owned by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, who was sanctioned by the US on March 11.

7. Lady Anastasia , owned by Russian arms manufacturer Alexander Mijeev, is retained at Port Adriano, Mallorca, as a result of sanctions against Russia and Belarus issued by the European Union.

8. Valerie was seized by the Spanish government in Barcelona, Spain, on March 15. Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that the ship is linked to Rostec State Corporation’s chief executive Sergey Chemezov.

9. The $578 million Sailing Yacht A owned by Russian billionaire Andrey Igorevich Melnichenko was seized by Italian police in the port of Trieste on March 12.

10. The 156-metre Dilbar superyacht is owned by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov.

11. La Datcha belongs to Russian billionaire businessman Oleg Tinkov.

12. Lady M , owned by Russian oligarch Alexei Mordashov, was seized by Italian police on March 5.

13. Amore Vero was seized in the Mediterranean resort of La Ciotat on March 3 by French authorities. The yacht is linked to Igor Sechin, a Putin ally who runs the Russian oil giant Rosneft.

14. Quantum Blue , owned by a company linked to Russian billionaire Sergei Galitsky, the head of Russian oil giant Rosneft, was seized in southern France on March 3.

15. Superyacht Luna is owned by Russian billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov.

16. Triple Seven is owned by Russian billionaire Alexander Abramov, according to media reports. The yacht was last up for sale in 2020 for €38 million ($41.85 million).

Who's Paying for Russian Oligarch's Seized Yacht in San Diego Bay?

The amadea, which superyachttimes.com called the 63rd largest yacht in the world, tied up monday at naval base san diego, in national city, by eric s. page and mari payton • published june 28, 2022 • updated on june 28, 2022 at 2:11 pm.

Many San Diegans who saw the news about the Amadea — the $325 million seized Russian oligarch's yacht that docked in San Diego on Monday — may be wondering: Who's paying for that?

Imagine how much the fuel costs to sail it more than 5,000 miles from Fiji, where it was seized earlier this month, to San Diego? A local marine fuel dock quoted the following prices, if you're wondering: $7.40 for gas, $7.35 for diesel. According to SuperYachtTimes.com, the Amadea has a 392,000-liter fuel tank. That works out to about 103,555 gallons, so it could cost $766,307 or so just to fill up.

And then there are maintence costs on a 350-foot long yacht, which, you can be sure, are extensive and necessary — in fact, not undertaking such efforts can cause the vessel's value to decline if it deteriotes due to neglect.

Get San Diego local news, weather forecasts, sports and lifestyle stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC San Diego newsletters.

The Amadea carries a full complement of 36 crew, including the captain, according to SuperYachtTimes, but it won't need nearly that many once she tied up at Naval Base San Diego in National City. Nevertheless, someone will be monitoring the yacht and conducting the maintenance.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the yacht was bought with what it calls "dirty money," and, as such, some may be relieved to hear, will be sold to the highest bidder. Presumably, the associated post-seizure costs accrued after its seizure will be coming off the top of the sale price. Until then, the Amadea, which SuperYachtTimes called the 63rd larges yacht in the world, will resume in the custody of the U.S.

Things to do this weekend in San Diego: Aladdin on Broadway, Tequila & Taco Music Festival and more

New program aims to find San Diego foster homes for shelter dogs. Here's how you can help

Officials with the DOJ said the Amadea, which was seized in connection to the department's KleptoCapture campaign undertaken in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, was owned by Suleiman Kerimov a Russian billionaire.

After the yacht arrived in San Diego, John Kirby, a former federal prosecutor, told NBC 7 that he thinks the U.S. government hopes moves like the Amadea's seizure are efforts to apply pressure to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Earlier this month, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said, regarding the Amadea, “The department had its eyes on every yacht purchased with dirty money. This yacht seizure should tell every corrupt Russian oligarch that they cannot hide — not even in the remotest part of the world. We will use every means of enforcing the sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war in Ukraine.”

The court ruling represented a significant victory for the U.S. as it encounters obstacles in its attempts to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs around the world. While those efforts are welcomed by many who oppose the war in Ukraine, some actions have tested the limits of American jurisdiction abroad.

The United States wasted no time in taking command of the after a Fiji court ruled in its favor and sailed the ship away from the South Pacific nation just hours after the ruling.

"If you could say or somehow prove that this boat … that the oligarch had the money for this boat because he bribed Vladimir Putin, that is public corruption," Kirby said. "It’s a crime even when it takes place outside the United States. The United States can still act upon it."

According the website, the Amadea is not currently for sale, but that may soon change. Until then, you can "shop" for other eye-popping, wallet-busting boats here .

The Associated Press contributed to this report — Ed.

This article tagged under:

Russian oligarch's seized yacht costs $7 million a year to maintain, US says

The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here.

Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tab

Thomson Reuters

Reports on the New York federal courts. Previously worked as a correspondent in Venezuela and Argentina.

'It's on Israel' to protect us in Gaza, say aid groups

International aid groups said on Thursday there is nothing more they can do to protect staff in the Gaza Strip and that it is up to Israel to avoid killing them as the United Nations appealed for direct humanitarian coordination with the Israeli military.

Watch CBS News

Gibraltar sells Russian oligarch's yacht for $37.5 million

September 27, 2022 / 7:37 PM EDT / CBS/AFP

Gibraltar on Tuesday sold a superyacht belonging to Russian oligarch Dmitry Pumpyansky for $37.5 million following its seizure in March under Ukraine war sanctions, judicial authorities said.

Gibraltar's Admiralty Marshal, a specialist British maritime court that handles the sale of ships, did not release the buyer's name.

The 72-metre (236-foot) vessel, MV Axioma, was seized on March 22 following a complaint filed by the U.S. bank J.P. Morgan, authorities in the tiny British enclave at the southern tip of Spain said at the time.

The move came shortly after Pumpyansky — head of TMK, Russia's biggest manufacturer of steel pipes — was added to the list of tycoons targeted by EU and U.K. sanctions after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

Gibraltar's Supreme Court had in June ordered that the yacht be sold at auction, with the Malta-flagged Axioma attracting 63 bids.

The funds raised will be used to compensate the oligarch's creditors.

In December 2021, J.P. Morgan granted a loan of 20.5 million euros ($21.7 million) to a company registered in the British Virgin Islands whose shareholders included a Cypriot firm owned by Pumpyansky.

But the bank saw Pumpyansky's inclusion on Britain's sanctions list as a breach of the loan contract since it led to the freezing of his assets.

Dozens of yachts allegedly tied to Russian oligarchs have been seized since Russia began its offensive in Ukraine seven months ago. In April, Dutch authorities seized 14 yachts , 12 of which were still under construction. U.S. and Spanish authorities took a $90 million super-yacht docked in Palma de Mallorca with ties to Viktor Vekselberg; and the U.S. also seized a $300 million vessel in Fiji.  Italy froze a $700 million mega-yacht linked to "prominent elements of the Russian government."

More from CBS News

Russian Oligarch's Seized Yacht Costs $7 Million a Year to Maintain, US Says

Russian Oligarch's Seized Yacht Costs $7 Million a Year to Maintain, US Says

FILE PHOTO: Part of a Hawaii themed cruise ship is seen near the Russian-owned super yacht Amadea, which was seized in Fiji by American law enforcement, while it is docked in Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S. June 17, 2022. REUTERS/Marco Garcia

By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government said it is spending more than $7 million a year to maintain a superyacht it seized from a sanctioned Russian oligarch, and urged a judge to let it auction the vessel before a dispute over its ownership is resolved.

Authorities in Fiji seized the 348-foot (106-meter), $300 million Amadea in May 2022, pursuant to a U.S. warrant alleging it was owned by Suleiman Kerimov, a multibillionaire sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2014 and 2018 in response to Russia's activities in Syria and Ukraine.

Efforts to auction the yacht are being challenged by Eduard Khudainatov, who led Russian state oil and gas company Rosneft from 2010 to 2013.

Khudainatov claims ownership of the Amadea, and has said it cannot not be forfeited because he has not been sanctioned.

In a court filing late on Friday, federal prosecutors in Manhattan told U.S. District Judge Dale Ho that the $600,000 average monthly maintenance bill for the Amadea has been "excessive," justifying an auction. They also said talks to have Khudainatov pay for the yacht's upkeep have broken down.

Photos You Should See

The Latest Photos From Ukraine

Prosecutors have said in previous court filings that Khudainatov is acting as the Amadea's "straw owner" to disguise Kerimov's role, and that maintenance payments are essential to preserving a yacht's value.

Khudainatov has until Feb. 23 to reply to prosecutors' request. In a statement, his lawyers said the motion to sell the vessel was "premature" and urged Ho to deny it until he "determines whether the seizure was unconstitutional."

The seizure came as Washington ramped up sanctions enforcement against people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin to pressure Moscow to halt its war against Ukraine.

If the U.S. government succeeded in auctioning the yacht, it would likely eventually transfer sale proceeds to Ukraine.

Prosecutors have said Kerimov violated U.S. sanctions by making more than $1 million in maintenance payments for the Amadea through the U.S. financial system, making the vessel now docked in San Diego subject to forfeiture.

Kerimov and his family are worth $10.7 billion, according to Forbes magazine. He amassed his fortune through Russian gold miner Polyus, though he is no longer a shareholder.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

Join the Conversation

Tags: Ukraine , Russia , United States , crime , Europe

America 2024

Health News Bulletin

Stay informed on the latest news on health and COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report.

Sign in to manage your newsletters »

Sign up to receive the latest updates from U.S News & World Report and our trusted partners and sponsors. By clicking submit, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy .

You May Also Like

The 10 worst presidents.

U.S. News Staff Feb. 23, 2024

Cartoons on President Donald Trump

Feb. 1, 2017, at 1:24 p.m.

Photos: Obama Behind the Scenes

April 8, 2022

Photos: Who Supports Joe Biden?

March 11, 2020

‘Unity Ticket’ a No-Go for No Labels

Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder April 4, 2024

Biden Ramps Up Pressure on Israel

Powell: Rate Cuts Still Likely in 2024

Tim Smart April 3, 2024

EXPLAINER: Rare Human Case of Bird Flu

Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder April 3, 2024

Key Takeaways From 4 Primaries

Susan Milligan April 3, 2024

ADP: Employers Keep on Hiring

Taxpayers Stuck Paying the Bills for Oligarchs' Seized Yachts and Mansions

F ALMOUTH HARBOUR, Antigua and Barbuda—Two dozen armed police and five FBI agents fanned out across the harbor here early one morning last year. They raided the Alfa Nero, a 270-foot megayacht believed to be owned by Andrey Grigoryevich Guryev, a Russian phosphates magnate sanctioned by the U.S. for links to President Vladimir Putin. 

Ever since, the $120 million yacht—nearly the length of a football field and outfitted with an infinity pool that transforms into a dance floor—has sat idle in this sleepy harbor. It’s a floating reminder of the West’s economic war against Russia and the difficulties in managing and offloading billions in seized Russian assets. It has also become a nightmare for this tiny country of 93,000. 

Taxpayers of this cash-strapped nation are currently paying $28,000 a week to maintain the stationary boat, including the salary of an Italian captain and $2,000 a day in diesel to keep its air conditioning running. If it turns off, mold will spread through the vessel within 48 hours, potentially damaging its hardwood interior and the Miro painting on board. A skeleton crew of six—having eaten through the boat’s supply of Champagne, lobsters and caviar—toils to ensure the vessel can one day be sailed away.

“You take thousand dollar bills, tear them up, and just keep going,” said Tom Paterson, the dock master of the marina, making a ripping up motion with his hands in the marina offices. 

Since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, dozens of governments launched an unprecedented effort to pressure Putin to end the war by going after his well-heeled cronies. The Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs Task Force, a multinational government group that coordinates on sanctions, reported in March that an estimated $58 billion of oligarchs’ assets, including yachts, mansions and investments, have been frozen or blocked because of their owners’ links to the Kremlin.  

The initial impulse to make life uncomfortable for Putin’s allies by blocking access to their wealth has evolved, as the war has dragged on, into moves to permanently confiscate their assets. Yet freezing an asset doesn’t immediately give authorities the right to take ownership and sell it. In many cases that comes only after complicated legal efforts to show those sanctioned people committed crimes, a process that could take months or years.

European countries have launched more than 300 criminal investigations against sanctioned Russians. The U.S. Justice Department has a team of 50 officials building criminal cases it hopes can rake in hundreds of millions of dollars by selling sanctioned Russian assets, which in turn can be handed over to help rebuild Ukraine. 

So far, the grand total from the assets delivered to Ukraine by the U.S. is just $5.4 million, the U.S. said. The U.K. hasn’t turned any frozen assets into funds. Neither has the European Union.

“The costs for Ukraine are huge, and morally I think it is a no-brainer that the party that inflicts that cost and a horrible war should pay,” said Anders Ahnlid, who heads the EU’s working group on frozen Russian assets. “But that has to be done under the law.” 

In practical terms, it is often taxpayers who are on the hook for eye-watering bills to maintain a fleet of high-end yachts and mansions that no one is allowed to use while sanctions remain in place. 

Efforts to bypass drawn-out legal proceedings in Western courts to sell the assets are coming up short. 

Earlier this year, the Antiguan government, arguing the Alfa Nero posed a risk to its harbor in case a hurricane sank it, passed new legislation and seized the ship outright. This summer it tried to sell the Alfa Nero to ex-Google chief executive Eric Schmidt for $67 million. But a company linked to Guryev launched a last-minute legal fight to block the sale, and Schmidt got cold feet, according to people familiar with the matter. The Antiguan government is now trying to line up a new buyer. 

There is a long legal path between freezing an asset, which bans the owner from using it, and confiscating the asset, which means the state can take ownership and sell it. Being sanctioned isn’t in itself a crime. So the state has to prove the sanctioned person both owns the asset, which is often held by a maze of shell companies, and broke a law, which can justify having it confiscated as proceeds of a crime. 

The U.S. is “leaving a lot of money on the table” from the asset seizures, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco testified before Congress in April. DOJ officials have asked Congress to broaden the government’s ability to turn over proceeds to Ukraine, including by expanding the range of seized assets they can transfer. 

The DOJ has seized two megayachts it says belong to sanctioned Russians and is in the process of trying to confiscate them, according to officials. One is the $300 million Amadea that U.S. taxpayers paid to have sailed to San Diego from Fiji. The other is the Tango, a $90 million yacht that U.S. authorities say is owned by Viktor Vekselberg, a sanctioned oligarch with close ties to Putin. Vekselberg is accused by the U.S. of tax fraud, money laundering and using fake documents and shell companies to avoid sanctions and hide his ownership of the Tango. 

U.S. investigators sometimes spend years building a case strong enough to take before a judge for a seizure warrant. That involves shoe-leather detective work such as poring over bank and property records and also mapping out connections and traveling the globe to talk to witnesses, said David Lim and Michael Khoo, DOJ officials leading Task Force KleptoCapture, which enforces sanctions on Russians.

“We still have to be able to meet our burden of proof in court,” Khoo said in an interview. A lot of the evidence and witnesses are overseas, “sometimes in jurisdictions that are not necessarily friendly to the U.S. And so it becomes a challenge to work across those borders,” he said.

In Italy, law-enforcement officials have seized at least four yachts and 20 luxury homes, as well as cars, artwork and other items since spring 2022, according to a list of frozen assets reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The Italian government last year earmarked €13.7 million, or about $14.8 million, to cover urgent maintenance costs of assets such as yachts and villas. The actual costs are much higher, Italian officials said. 

“Our problems are the yachts,” said an Italian official. “If the war continues…the running costs could potentially exceed their actual value.” 

As a rule of thumb, big yachts cost around 10% of their value a year to maintain, said Benjamin Maltby, a lawyer at Keystone Law, which specializes in advising on megayachts. Their hulls need to be regularly scraped and air-conditioning units run nearly round the clock. The crew also needs paying. So does insurance and rent in marinas. 

Forcing owners themselves to pay for their upkeep is complicated—the sanctioned parties aren’t allowed to use the financial system to transfer funds without special permission from governments, which can take months or years to obtain. Some European countries such as Spain allow the sanctioned owners to move funds to pay their maintenance costs. 

Selling a recently sanctioned boat is also hard, Maltby said. Many buyers don’t like the idea of a secondhand sanctioned boat for fear it might be reclaimed by its original owners when it enters a different legal jurisdiction. “A lot of these boats are going to be stuck in limbo,” he said. 

“There is a market for yachts. There is no market for moldering yachts,” said Andrew Adams, the former director of the KleptoCapture task force, to U.S. lawmakers recently. “We have to take care to make sure we’re maintaining that value.” 

The Scheherazade, one of the world’s biggest and most expensive yachts, was seized by Italy last year. But the €650 million boat has no publicly identified owner. Italy’s financial police have linked the Scheherazade to former Rosneft President Eduard Khudainatov but haven’t been able to confirm that he owns it. The anticorruption group of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny has raised the possibility it could even belong to Putin himself. 

The 460-foot yacht is moored in the Tuscan port of Marina di Carrara, where it is being refitted, work that began before it was seized. The company that officially owns the boat, registered in the Cayman Islands, is still covering those costs, according to people familiar with the boat’s current status. What will happen to the Scheherazade once the refurbishment is completed is unclear. 

Also stuck in Italy is Sailing Yacht A, a €530 million boat with running costs of around €1 million a month. It belongs to Andrey Melnichenko, a Russian coal and fertilizer billionaire. The 469-foot yacht has been stuck in the northern Italian port of Trieste since March 2022, when Melnichenko was sanctioned by the EU.

Like other oligarchs, Melnichenko is hoping to get his property back. Worried the yacht will suffer serious damage in the hands of the Italian state, Melnichenko has offered to pay for its upkeep, according to a person familiar with his legal moves. 

The EU is currently negotiating how to make sanctions evasion a crime in all its member states. That could eventually provide a broader basis for confiscating assets, but it would still require proof of active evasion. 

So far, the most high profile Russian boat confiscation was engineered not by a government but by J.P. Morgan. The U.S. bank successfully appealed to have the yacht Axioma sold at auction to pay off €20.5 million its owner, a sanctioned Russian oligarch, owed to the lender. The vessel, replete with a 3-D cinema, fetched $37.5 million at auction to an unnamed buyer in Gibraltar where it was impounded. JPMorgan said it received what it was owed. A court in Gibraltar still has to decide what to do with the remaining funds, according to a court official. 

On a recent day in Antigua, the Alfa Nero’s glossy black hull floated in a largely empty harbor. Most of the other yachts had left to avoid hurricane season. On the dock next to it two security guards sheltered under a canopy in front of a red sign reading “Property of The Antigua & Barbuda Government.” 

In the months after the invasion of Ukraine, the Alfa Nero had shut off its transponder to avoid being tracked but was ultimately located by U.S. officials. Guryev is the founder of PhosAgro, a leading Russian chemical company, and according to the U.S. government owns the second-largest estate in London after Buckingham Palace. Guryev is also sanctioned in the U.K. 

The Office of Foreign Assets Control, an enforcement arm of the U.S. Treasury, said the sanctioned Russian bought the yacht in 2014. Guryev had previously claimed the Alfa Nero wasn’t his but that he used it from time to time. The boat is owned by a company listed in the British Virgin Islands called Flying Dutchman, which in turn is managed by Opus Private, a fiduciary services company based in Guernsey, the island in the English Channel. Opus Private in turn represented a trust of which Guryev’s daughter is the beneficial owner, according to court filings in Antigua. 

The boat, which originally had a crew of 37, found itself in legal limbo. Its owners were barred from using the financial system to pay its bills or sail it away.

Opus said it had done its utmost to obtain the licenses needed to make payments for the vessel’s maintenance and to explain the position to the Antiguan government “to no avail.”

The yacht, meanwhile, spewed raw effluent into the harbor after its onboard sewage system broke. It also became uninsurable after the guarantees on fire extinguishers and other safety equipment expired and hurricane season approached. Most of the crew left because they weren’t being paid. A group of 26 crew subsequently filed a lawsuit in Antigua, which enforced the sanctions as part of a treaty with the U.S., asking for $2.2 million for unpaid wages from the boat’s unspecified owner, according to their lawyer. 

A skeleton crew stayed on board and kept the decks polished while bartering vintage bottles of wine stored in the ship for basic foodstuffs. The going rate: two bottles of wine for one tuna, according to the captain. 

In February those remaining crew finally mutinied, writing a letter to the Antiguan government saying, “We can no longer deal with this,” said Darwin Telemaque, chief executive officer of the Antigua port authority. 

Without these key crew members, no one would know how to keep the ship running or move it in case of a storm, he said. If the megayacht keeled over, it would block Falmouth Harbor, a key financial artery for the island. 

So the government decided to pass emergency legislation to seize the vessel, auction it, pay off maintenance expenses and keep the staff on board, retaining the surplus for the country’s treasury. The government of Antigua petitioned the U.S. Treasury to allow the boat to be sold, a move the U.S. took in June. 

The chance to buy a top-class yacht at a knockdown price caused a flurry of interest. Telemaque said he got WhatsApp messages from as far afield as Algeria. Schmidt, the former Google CEO, won the ensuing auction with a $67 million bid. 

A company linked to Guryev’s daughter filed a last-minute injunction to block the sale. The appeal was dismissed. The fiduciary company that controls the yacht then filed for a judicial review over the legality of Antigua’s sudden change of the law, according to filings. The case is ongoing. 

Schmidt refused to take ownership while the legal battle was unresolved and dropped out, according to people familiar with the matter. The Antiguan government was hit by another lawsuit, this one from Warren Halle, a U.S. real-estate magnate, who had the second-highest bid in the auction. Halle argued that since Schmidt hadn’t transferred the cash for the boat within a stipulated seven-day deadline, his bid should be disqualified. 

Andrea Maccaferri, the acting captain of the Alfa Nero, said he has no idea what will happen next. He compared life on board the stranded boat to a monastery. Lunch is served at noon, dinner at 6 p.m. sharp, cooked by a British chef. The captain said he constantly checks weather reports tracking hurricanes, which he fears could wreck the vessel. 

Deidra Cochrane, 28, an office assistant at the marina, said the Alfa Nero is a source of gossip on the bus she takes to work. People don’t generally believe the government will be able to sell it, and if it does, they see little benefit accruing to them, she said. “It’s a boat that creates a lot of scandal and opinion,” she said. 

At the Skullduggery bar and restaurant alongside the marina, a table of regulars drank vodka and fretted that Antigua’s decision to take on a Putin ally would alienate rich Russian customers who flock to the island in winter. “Don’t flick the tiger’s balls,” warned one. 

When he ventures out to St John’s, the capital of the two-island nation, Maccaferri never wears the red polo shirt bearing the logo of the Alfa Nero he wears in the marina, worried that a Russian agent may target him.

Whoever one day sails the Alfa Nero out of port, “I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a submarine with a red star waiting for it,” he said.

Write to Max Colchester at [email protected], José de Córdoba at [email protected] and Margherita Stancati at [email protected]

Ukraine war latest: Russia says it's now in 'direct confrontation' with NATO; Macron dismisses 'ridiculous' Moscow attack claims

In Brussels, members of NATO are marking 75 years of the alliance and discussing how to support Ukraine. Elsewhere, four people have been killed in a drone strike overnight in Kharkiv. Listen to a podcast on how Russia is avoiding the effects of Western sanctions while you scroll.

Thursday 4 April 2024 22:03, UK

• Six civilians killed in occupied territory, Russia says
• Russia says it's now in 'direct confrontation' with NATO
• Macron dismisses Kremlin's 'ridiculous' claims about Moscow attack
• Explained: What is a double tap strike?
• 'Great risk' of frontlines collapsing as Russia prepares 'big attack'
• NATO explained: How the alliance was formed and who joined first
• Explained: How the war has strayed outside Ukraine's borders
• Big picture : What's happening with war?

That's it for our live coverage tonight - thanks for tuning in. 

We'll be back early tomorrow morning for more live updates, insight and analysis. 

Earlier, we brought you the words of US secretary of state Antony Blinken, who told reporters in Brussels that NATO was "intensely focused on the future". 

You can watch his media conference below - during which he outlined the current situation regarding Ukraine's potential membership - below... 

These images show the aftermath of what Russian-installed officials claim was a Ukrainian strike on a residential building in occupied Donetsk. 

A total of six civilians were killed in Ukrainian attacks on Russian-controlled parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, the Moscow-installed officials claimed.

A Ukrainian man has been sentenced to life in prison for his role in setting up an attack on a pizza restaurant that killed 13 people.

The Ria Pizza restaurant in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk - which is also the birthplace of Volodymyr Zelenskyy - was targeted with a ballistic missile in June last year.

Three girls - two sisters aged 14, and a 17-year-old - were among those killed in the explosion, which also claimed the life of notable Ukrainian poet Victoria Amelina.

"A local resident was sentenced to life imprisonment for guiding the occupiers' missile attack on the pizzeria in Kramatorsk," the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general said today. 

It said the man was recruited to carry out the task by an intelligence official in the Russian-controlled part of the Donetsk region, who asked him to gather information about the restaurant.

“The convict agreed to the offer. In the city centre, he noticed cars with military licence plates in the car park and military themselves in the restaurant,” it said.

The man then covertly recorded two videos of the site, which he sent to his handler via the Telegram messaging app, before Russia directed a strike at the restaurant. 

"The man was sentenced to life imprisonment with confiscation of property for high treason," the prosecutor's office added.

An update on our 8.40am post now. 

A nuclear power plant in Ukraine is "on the verge" of a blackout following a Russian attack, according to the country's energy agency. 

An external overhead line that supplies power from Ukraine's energy grid to the Zaporizhzhia plant was disconnected today after a Russian shelling attack, Energoatom said.

The situation "threatens to cause an emergency", it said in a statement. 

"If this last line of communication with the national power grid is disconnected, the plant will be on the verge of another blackout, which is a serious violation of the conditions for its safe operation," the statement continued.

Earlier, Russian-installed officials in the plant noted that a high-voltage power line to the plant, which is the largest in Europe, had gone down, adding that the reasons for the power line going down were being investigated.

The plant has experienced eight complete blackouts and one partial one since the war began and has been under Russian occupation since March 2022.

The nuclear facility has been the subject of much controversy - with both Ukraine and Russia accusing the other of trying to cause nuclear catastrophe by attacking it. 

We've just heard from the US secretary of state, who has been speaking in Brussels at the 75th anniversary of the Western military alliance's formation. 

Antony Blinken told reporters that NATO was "intensely focused on the future". 

Speaking as Sweden joined an alliance meeting for the first time as a new member, Mr Blinken said a path to Ukraine joining in the future was being discussed. 

"We reaffirmed that Ukraine's future is in NATO's [and] our goal now is to create a bridge to Ukraine's full membership, offering additional support and greater cooperation as Ukraine makes the reforms necessary to join the alliance."

He praised Ukraine's progress in fending off the Russian Black Sea Fleet, but said that more aid for Kyiv was essential. 

He added that he wants Ukraine to have an army that deters aggression and can defend itself properly, and that discussions were ongoing as to how to achieve that. 

NATO allies are in the process of doubling back and doubling down on finding new weapons for Kyiv, he added. 

King Charles has written to the NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg on the 75th anniversary of the alliance's formation. 

We've attached the letter in full below... 

"Dear secretary-general,

Seventy-five years ago, 12 countries gathered in Washington, DC to call into being a defensive alliance that would act as an antidote to years of war in Europe, a symbol of the enduring bond between Europe and North America. 

"The United Kingdom's signature on the Washington Treaty marks our fundamental commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) as the cornerstone of our security and the values we hold dear.

"As we welcome the citizens of Sweden and Finland to the protection that NATO affords, our thoughts remain with the Ukrainian people. 

"In the face of an unprovoked invasion, NATO has shown steadfast support for Ukraine in its courageous battle for sovereignty.

"The United Kingdom has been there from the start. NATO's headquarters may have travelled from Belgrave Square in London, to the streets of Paris, and now to Brussels, but its core task endures: to protect the one billion citizens of our NATO allies. 

"This vital alliance continues to thrive and adapt in the face of new threats and challenges.

"Having myself been born six months before the birth of NATO, I would like to send a personal message of gratitude and congratulations to NATO on its seventy-fifth anniversary. 

"This is a moment of celebration and a reminder of NATO's founding principle: for the preservation of peace and security.

"Charles R."

Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries may have disrupted more than 15% of Moscow's capacity, a NATO official has claimed.

"In terms of damage, the strikes have probably disrupted more than 10% of Russia's refinery capacity, maybe more than 15%," the official said on condition of anonymity. 

"Depending on the extent of the damage, repairs could take considerable time."

Kyiv has been continuously looking to set refineries on Russian soil ablaze in a bid to hit Moscow's ability to finance its continuing war, using drones and missiles to do so. 

Oil is one of Russia's main wartime exports - with countries like India capitalising on Western sanctions to buy up cheap Russian crude oil in massive quantities. 

Speaking anonymously to the Reuters news agency, the NATO official also said that the alliance believes Moscow still lacks sufficient munitions and manpower to launch a successful offensive, but a that a concerted effort by Russia to use drones and missiles to degrade Ukraine's air defence capabilities is expected.

"They're likely to be unable to mount any mount any significant offensive operation without another large-scale mobilisation," they said, adding that Russia was currently adding some 30,000 new recruits to its ranks every month. 

The official also said  that NATO did not have confirmation Iran had transferred ballistic missiles to Russia amid widespread reports - but the alliance had no reason to believe it would not go through once mutual beneficial terms are agreed between the two sides.

Let's bring you up to speed on the day's key events. 

Civilian deaths 

A "double tap" Russian attack in Kharkiv killed three first responders and a civilian in the early hours, according to local officials. 

The tactic of hitting a target twice - often when emergency responders are attending to victims - is known as a "double tap". 

A 36-year-old man was also killed in a separate shelling attack in the region this afternoon, according to officials. 

Meanwhile, a total of six civilians were killed in Ukrainian attacks on Russian-occupied parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, Russian-installed officials have claimed.

NATO not in direct confrontation with Russia

Early this morning, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said relations between Russia and NATO have slid to the level of direct confrontation.

But the alliance's secretary-general waved off the comments. 

"NATO is not party to the conflict and NATO will not be party to the conflict," Jens Stoltenberg said. 

"We don't have any plans of having NATO combat troops inside Ukraine, there has been no request for that," he added. 

Support for Ukraine

Mr Stoltenberg and key NATO allies said that air defence missiles were the key priority for Ukraine, but no one laid out exact plans or shipment guarantees at the 75th anniversary of the alliance's formation. 

"We need to mobilise more support in the coming days and weeks [for Ukraine]... but then we also have to do another thing, and that is to ensure that we are able to establish a stronger, robust and more predictable framework for the long-term support," the secretary-general said. 

Some allies said they would look for more missiles, but offered no concrete commitment to any figures or timeline. 

France rejects 'ridiculous' Moscow attack comment

The French president hit out at Moscow's comments on last month's deadly concert hall attack, dismissing them as "ridiculous" and "threatening". 

Emmanuel Macron was speaking a day after a rare phone call between the French and Russian defence ministers, after which both made diverging media statements. 

The Russian defence ministry had quoted defence minister Sergei Shoigu as telling his French counterpart that the "Kyiv regime does nothing without approval of its Western handlers" and that Russia hoped the French special services weren't involved in the terror attack.

Mr Macron said such comments "were indeed baroque and threatening, which is nothing new".

"In other words, it's ridiculous."

Finnish extend Russia border ban

Lastly, over to Finland.

The government there has said it will extend the closure of its border with Russia until further notice. 

It also added several ports to its list where travel would be prohibited.

Finland, which recently joined NATO, closed its land borders with Russia late last year after a surge in migrant crossings from its neighbour. 

These images show Ukrainian sappers sweeping a field in Kherson as part of demining operations in the area. 

Sappers are military engineers who oversee a variety of tasks, including removing such explosives from minefields. 

An estimate made in April last year suggested that approximately 174,000sqkm of Ukrainian territory was contaminated by landmines.

Be the first to get Breaking News

Install the Sky News app for free

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Look at the Thames and know the time for metaphors is over: our politics is drowning in effluent

It took a sewage-plagued Boat Race to do it, but people can now see the appalling state of England’s water industry and waterways

F ire up a Chariots of Fire-style theme tune for the speech of the defeated Oxford captain in last Saturday’s Boat Race, beamed edifyingly around the world : “We had a few guys go down pretty badly with E coli ,” declared Lenny Jenkins (the university’s boat club itself says it can’t be that specific on precisely what caused the gut-rot). Having shared a few of the nauseating details, Jenkins concluded: “It would be a lot nicer if there wasn’t as much poo in the water.” Yup, a country that once painted a quarter of the world pink now regrettably advertises itself as mostly brown – encircled by its own effluent and pumping it furiously through its river veins just to be sure. As metaphors go, it is on the nose in all senses.

And so to Thames Water, steward of the river on which that internationally famous race is rowed – a firm that is £18bn in deliriously structured debt , has had to be extensively threatened to spend so much as 30p on infrastructure investment, spent years being used as a cash cow for shareholders, and has pumped human waste into the Greater London area of the river for almost 2,000 hours already this year. Despite this rapacious shareholder-facing culture, its current foreign investors have now apparently judged it to be “uninvestable”. Thames Water’s relatively new CEO, Chris Weston, must be struck by that feeling that plagued Tony Soprano. “It’s good to be in something from the ground floor,” the mobster judged. “I came too late for that – I know. But lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.”

This isn’t the line Chris Weston is going with in public, chirping to the Sunday Times: “I think the water industry, the characteristics it has, as a regulated monopoly, is very attractive to some types of investors.” He should probably tell that to the ones walking away, even as Thames has spent much of the past five years trying to get Ofwat to let it raise bills, most recently by up to 40% . Ofwat is of course the water industry’s “regulator” – if I could do double sarcastic airquotes, I would – and perhaps the only entity more full of shit than the rivers and seas it’s supposed to give one about. Civic-minded individuals such as the campaigner Feargal Sharkey or groups including Surfers Against Sewage have made all the running and worked long and tirelessly to push this issue into the public consciousness, and from there to outrage.

The part that Chris has correctly said out loud, however, is that back in 1989 the water industry wasn’t privatised in any true sense of the term – in fact, the Conservative government of the day held a sale of monopoly rights. State assets were parcelled out into private hands, and those who picked up these monopolies have spent decades doing grotesquely well for themselves at the expense of the captive nation that is stuck with them. They are in effect oligarchs, and even if they can’t boil their enemies in vats of scalding water like their Russian counterparts, they can certainly make them swim in seas of sewage. As Sun Tzu said: “If you wait by the river long enough, the turds of your enemies will float by. I say ‘long enough’ – 30 seconds should probably do it.”

You hear a lot about how the water industry was privatised for ideological reasons, but surely few ideologies could be more universally shared than the one that should see them renationalised. Namely: “I strongly believe that pumping raw sewage into our seas and rivers is both literally and qualitatively shit.” Come on – this really is the great unifier. In an atomised and polarised age, you can’t knock the sheer percentage of people who would – right now – be able to put all their other differences aside and unite behind the idea of that one. The public didn’t back water privatisation at the time it happened, and they sure as Shirley back it even less now. Plenty of Conservatives will gladly tell you that privatising utilities was always madness, for reasons ranging from economic and civic to national security, and Britain is far from the only place around the world where water privatisation has demonstrably not worked.

The public is also not stupid and knows very well that it’s going to be on the hook for the various firms’ massive debts, one way or another. If Thames is currently £18bn in debt and heading for collapse, the £15bn that is the estimated cost of renationalising the entire sector starts to look like long-term good value. Quite why Keir Starmer has rowed back on Labour’s previous pledge to renationalise the water industry is unclear. Presumably the best way to look like you’re responsible with money is to present yourself as the continuity candidate, letting calamitously run monopolies spray it everywhere then demand that consumers of that luxury product, water, foot the bill yet again.

That said, at the current rate of malfunction, Thames Water’s crisis will be upon us sooner than any general election. Yet where is the sense of urgency? Last year the government gave the water companies until 2050 to stop dumping sewage into seas and waterways. Incredible, really, when targets are this low-bar that hitherto the companies have still failed to clear them every time. Someone – anyone! – is going to have to think what to do about this wretched wallygarchy. Those in charge ought to be long past the point of looking busy and simply holding their noses.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

• Thames Water
• Water industry
• The Boat Race

More on this story

Thames Water owner bond slumps to record lows amid uncertainty over firm

One in three UK water workers verbally abused amid sewage fury, GMB finds

Regulators urged to act over water companies’ record sewage discharge

Thames Water investors pull plug on £500m of funding amid standoff with regulator

England’s ludicrous experiment in privatised water is coming to a messy end

England’s sewage crisis: how polluted is your local river and which regions are worst hit?

Water companies in England face outrage over record sewage discharges

‘Elevated’ risk of hackers targeting UK drinking water, says credit agency

South West Water ‘not honest’ about drought preparations, watchdog claims

People in the UK: tell us about your local river and the environmental issues affecting it

Most viewed.