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YACHT BROKERAGE NEWS

Discover the most recent brokerage news from TWW Yachts, including sales announcement, price reductions and new yachts for sale and get our updates directly in your inbox subscribing below.

New to the sales market: Benetti 108 Tradition Supreme MY PARADIS

TWW Yachts is proud to announce our new appointment as the central agent for the Benetti 108 Tradition Supreme MY PARADIS.

New to the sales market: TAIPAN OF WALES

TWW Yachts is proud to announce our new appointment as the central agent for the 37m Pendennis TAIPAN OF WALES.

Price reduction on the Benetti 40m Oasis PHOENIX

The owner of PHOENIX has instructed us to make a price further reduction of €500k, making the new asking price €21,950,000 (EX VAT). PHOENIX is finishing winter works and will be ready for the Mediterranean season from mid-April.

Price reduction on the Azimut Magellano 25M SWG

The owner of SWG has instructed us to make a price reduction, making the new asking price €4,600,000 (EX VAT). SWG remains available for viewings in Antibes at short notice.

New Photography for the 47m ISA AQUAMARINA

We are pleased to present a complete selection of new photographs of the stunning AQUAMARINA. She remains in Dubai where she is available for inspection at short notice.

New to the sales market: Azimut Grande 27 Metri ARIA

TWW Yachts is proud to announce our new appointment as the co-central agent for the Azimut Grande 27 Metri ARIA.

TWW welcomes ABILITY to the sales fleet

We are thrilled to announce our new CA for the 41m Codecasa ABILITY.

$300,000 Price Reduction on HALCYON

The owner of HALCYON has instructed us to make a significant price reduction of $300k, making the new asking price $10,950,000 (EX VAT).

New for Sale: 36.8m motor yacht LEONIDAS

We are delighted to announce our appointment as Central Agent for the sale of the 36.8m Marti Yat motor yacht LEONIDAS. Designed and engineered by

€300,000 price reduction on Mangusta 130

The owner of the MANGUSTA 130 has instructed us to make a significant price reduction of €300k, making the new asking price €7,200,000 (VAT Paid).

SOLD: 50m Tankoa S501 GREY

We are pleased to announce the sale of the 50m Tankoa S501 GREY.

Price reduction on 44m Feadship VALERIA

The owner of the VALERIA has instructed us to make a significant price reduction of €6M, making the new asking price €9,000,000 (EX VAT). Please bring all reasonable offers.

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By SuperyachtNews 20 Sep 2017

What is the future of superyacht brokerage?

Ahead of mys, we ask how superyacht brokers can consolidate their position within this increasingly competitive market.….

Today’s brokerage market is being driven forward by a more discerning client base and what the sector claims is growing demand. These external forces are bolstering professionalism among brokers, and forcing the hand of best practice and due diligence in the sales process.

But it’s the owners that keep this sector on its toes, moving forward and adapting; clients wanting more for less. Brokers have seen their role mould into that of a consultant, which is no bad thing, but standards must be fortified and brokers, in the wake of a digital revolution, must continue to prove their worth and add value.

“The days of knowing someone from the yacht club and them being your client for life are over,” Kevin Merrigan, CEO of Northrop & Johnson, explained during the 2016 Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show.

“We have to prove ourselves every day and we’re upping our game every day to stay ahead. If a broker is not efficient with their support, communication or website information, and you don’t understand the marketplace, what value are you bringing to the table?”

Acclimating to the needs of today’s clients is a challenge for every company in their respective fields, but how can a brokerage company define its value proposition, in what is one of the industry’s most fiercely competitive sectors, when the market share appears to be getting exponentially smaller?

As Raphael Sauleau, CEO of Fraser, pointed out in issue 179 of The Superyacht Report , “the tactics in brokerage today are much more aggressive. If you slip up, the next broker is right in there behind you.”

"If a broker is not efficient with their support, communication or website information, and you don’t understand the marketplace, what value are you bringing to the table?”

The burgeoning number of brokers has both spoilt and confused clients, so brokers need to be able to demonstrate their ability and present a credible track record of business to win listings. When demand was stripped back to the bone after the global financial crisis, the market saw a huge, but necessary adjustment and it became tougher for brokers to overcome their competition, win listings with a sensible commission structure, and keep their heads above the water.

Today, we find ourselves in an interesting position, where buying confidence in the pre-eminent yachting markets is returning, so it’s crucial that brokerage firms have learnt from the economic ups and downs and are working towards a better brokerage market, where it’s not just about buying and selling, but adding value and inspiring.

As we contemplate what lies ahead for the brokerage sector, there are some key questions to address: what needs to change? And what can we do differently?

We ask that you join us to help map out this sector’s future next week at the Monaco Yacht Show, where YPI will be hosting an exclusive panel discussion on ‘The Future of Superyacht Brokerage’, at the Monaco Yacht Club, on Wednesday 27th September, at 10am.

The think tank, led by Martin H. Redmayne, Chairman and CEO of The Superyacht Group, and accompanied by Olivier Blanchet (BNP Paribas), Tony Allen (Hill Dickinson), Laurent Debart (YPI), Nikos Panagiotopoulos (BRS Greece) and Patrick Coote (Marketing Expert), will spur dynamic new approaches for the world of buying and selling yachts.

If you are a lawyer, captain, family office, owner’s rep, surveyor, banker or shipyard sales director, you are eligible to attend.

To RSVP, or for more information, contact Leticia Rivero: [email protected]

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Brokerage report: Market shift evident as total sales value falls 76% in October

Following a favourable third quarter of 2023 , the superyacht brokerage market has now entered an expected cooling-off period, with official BOATPro data showing depressed actvity for the month of October. 

The most striking result for this month was a sharp decline of 75.6 per cent in the total value of sales, likely exaggerated by the heightened activity of September's boat show season. Compared with the previous month, this figure fell from €567.7 million to €138.4 million – also the lowest monthly sales value seen this year.

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Inside Florida's 'Little Moscow,' where Russian money flows thanks to 'rich daddies' snapping up real estate

• "Little Moscow" is the nickname for Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, which is flowing with Russian money.
• Previously a strip of motels, the island was revitalized in the 1990s with luxury developments.
• Many Russians snapped up properties, but they're afraid sanctions could prevent them from buying more .

Welcome to "Little Moscow."

Like its namesake city, it's home to many Russian elites. Unlike it's namesake city, it's located on a small strip of land near Miami: Sunny Isles Beach, Florida.

"They love to be here, and they like to spend their money and enjoy their life," Lana Bell, a real-estate agent, recently told the News Nation correspondent Brian Entin , referring to her wealthy Russian clientele.

Russian money has brought a real-estate boom to the region over the years, but now these power players are afraid they might not be able to enjoy the Miami sunshine much longer. As Entin reported, they're worried the escalating Russia-Ukraine conflict will blacklist them from buying American real estate, although Bell said it hasn't been a problem so far.

However, existing sanctions from past political events already slowed their buying efforts in recent years, and Biden has said the US will seize luxury apartments from Russian oligarchs with wealth parked in the country. But not all of Little Moscow's residents are wealthy, and not all of them support the war. 

Here's a look at the rise of Little Moscow and the lives of the Russians who made it happen.

Sunny Isles Beach is a 1.5-mile strip of island that sits between the Atlantic Ocean and Intracoastal Waterway in South Florida. It's about a 40-minute drive to downtown Miami, depending on traffic.

Sunny Isles Beach is located in northeastern Miami-Dade county. As of 2020, it's home to 22,342 people . The most recent data from the Census' American Community Survey that tracked population from 2015 to 2019 shows that there are 1,079 Russian-born residents living there — more than any country in Europe or Asia.

It's a place where beachfront high-rise hotels and condos dot the coastline, towering over an idyllic scene of white-sand beaches and sparkling turquoise water. Compared to the dark and brutal winters of Russia, it's a slice of paradise.

Before becoming a Russian luxury hot spot, the city was full of quirk and charm thanks to beachfront motels and tourists.

Fred Grimm wrote in the South Florida Sun Sentinel that the city was "once a linear tableau of South Florida kitsch, a seaside strip of themed motels, offering homage to ancient Egypt, Rome, the wild west, Polynesia, American Indians and so many nautical motifs, including Neptune and his water nymphs."

"Motel Row," a strip of 30 motels along the beach, was built in the 1950s and 1960s, when the city was known as Sunny Isles (before that it was called North Miami Beach). Tourism slowed its roll in the 1970s, resuming some 20 years later when most of the motels were replaced with luxury hotels, and Sunny Isles was renamed Sunny Isles Beach.

The city's luxury-development boom that first began in the 1990s revitalized the city's economy, which began to see an influx of wealth.

The median home value in Sunny Isles is $555,042 , higher than the $469,562 median home value in Miami. The most expensive home in the area currently listed on Sotheby's is $13.9 million , and condos can cost as much as  $35 million . 

It's a place of well-known luxury. Consider the Porsche Design Tower , where residents can use an elevator for their cars. And the iconic Acqualina Resort was named the country's best continental resort four years in a row by US News & World Report . Nightly rates at the five-star resort start at $2,500 a night . 

Among these developments are several Trump Towers, a brand that has held a huge appeal among Russian investors looking to move their money in the post-Soviet economy.

Trump doesn't actually own the buildings but licensed the use of his name there, The Washington Post reported . Real-estate agents told the Post in 2016 that Trump's name carries weight among the European, South American, and Asian elite, but especially among Russian oligarchs.

"When Russians get here, the first thing they ask is, 'Where is the Trump building?'" Ilya Masarsky, real-estate developer who has worked with Russian investors in the US, told The Post. 

Jose Lima, a salesperson for the company that developed the region's Trump towers, said at the time that Russian speakers bought about one-third of the 500 units he sold. 

A 2017 Reuters investigation found that at least 63 members of Russia's elite spent nearly $100 million buying property in Trump buildings in the region, including the nearby city of Hollywood. Reuters called some of the buyers "politically connected businessmen," adding that none seemed to be part of Putin's inner circle.

"Russian patriots are happy here; Sunny Isles is a happy place," Bell, the real-estate agent, told The Daily Beast in 2019 . "Russian men make money at home, they visit their Miami property just for a few months in winter. Some of these rich daddies are in their fifties or older, while their women are in their twenties; the beach is packed with really young pregnant Russian girls, girls with babies." 

A past Miami Herald investigation found that some of these buyers were the targets of US government investigations. Experts in illicit financing said Russian money gave the city its nickname of Little Moscow.

The Miami Herald found in 2016 that at least 13 personal or company buyers in the Trump Towers were investigated by the government, including a Russian-American organized-crime group and a Mexican banker accused of robbing investors. It also found that about 60% of the units are owned by shell companies, which only hold assets like real estate and can be involved in money laundering.

Experts more recently told the Herald's Michael Wilner that illicit financing has helped Russians spend years snapping up properties along Florida's southeastern coast. They estimated that Russia's elite had more than $1 trillion in offshore accounts, which they said was disproportionally held in South Florida property.

As Julia Friedlander, director of the Atlantic Council's Economic Statecraft Initiative, told the publication, "We know what's happening based on patterns of behavior and observations from various sources, just like parts of Manhattan and parts of London. They're known as places where real estate will reliably retain its value."

The greater Miami region that Sunny Isles Beach is part of is also a popular place for birth tourism. Russian women have fueled a baby boom there in recent years.

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As NBC News reported in 2018 , having a baby in Miami is considered a status symbol in Moscow. Russian birth tourists told the publication that giving birth there means getting an American passport and better medical care. It's a legal act, as long as documents are filled out honestly, that allows their children the right to American citizenship and to sponsor their parents for a green card once they turn 21.

Wealthier Russians even hire agencies that offer birth-tourism packages that cost anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000, according to NBC News. Some of these companies offer Trump apartments as part of the package, the Daily Beast's Katie Zavadski reported . For $84,700, expectant Russian mothers can get an apartment in a Trump Tower with a gold-tiled bathtub and chauffeured Mercedes-Benz. 

Not all of the money flowing into Little Moscow is from Russia, nor is it all "dirty." And not all of the people who live there are wealthy.

The Herald's Wilner reported that the area has also seen investments by overseas buyers in Europe and Latin America.

And, as Ari Odzer reported for local outlet NBC Miami , Sunny Isles Beach is also a sanctuary for refugees from the old Soviet Union and Russians on tourist visas. For this reason, he said, it's also known as Little Kyiv, Little Odessa, and Little Minsk. 

Locals told Odzer that the Russia-Ukraine conflict is dividing residents, with some supporting Putin and others who don't but are too afraid to say anything. Odzer wrote "the fear of Putin is a real phenomenon," considering he could barely get any Russians to speak on the record about their president.

Russian real-estate purchasing has been slowing down in recent years because of sanctions.

Tightened US sanctions in light of Moscow's interference in the US elections, as well as the Kremlin banning thousands of rich Russian law-enforcement officials from traveling abroad, left many Russians renting or selling their Sunny Isles Beach condos, the Daily Beast's Anna Nemstova reported in 2019 . 

"Russians can be easily recognized by their Bentleys and Rolls-Royces," Bell, the Russian real-estate agent, told Nemstova at the time. "But this year the sales have gone down. It is becoming problematic for the Russian elite to take their money out of the country; and here the rules demand full disclosure, the name of the buyer and the source of money."

However, Little Moscow still held the attention of "Russian corrupt bureaucrats," Ilya Shumanov, the deputy head of Transparency International, added. Those who could still travel came during the winter and conducted deals at restaurants in the Bal Harbor mall before returning home to conduct business again, Nemstova wrote.

Brokers also recently told Wilner that Russian purchases have dwindled in the past few years, but said that could change with new developments like the Bentley Tower and the St. Regis Sunny Isles.

Now, Russian elites in the area are worried new sanctions stemming from the Russia-Ukraine conflict could prevent them from buying real estate.

President Joe Biden issued sanctions last week targeting Russia's elite and their families and restricting the Kremlin's ability to access Western financial institutions.

"We are extending the reach of US sanctions to prevent the elites close to Putin from using their kids to hide assets, evade costs, and squander the resources of the Russian people," a National Security Council official told Wilner. "This is a new approach."

While Little Moscow's elites are worried future sanctions will threaten their lifestyle, experts told Wilner the sanctions currently in place were unlikely to have a strong effect in South Florida. 

Anders Åslund, a Swedish economist and the author of "Russia's Crony Capitalism: The Path From Market Economy to Kleptocracy," doesn't think this will affect the Russian rich in the greater Miami region that Little Moscow is in. He told Wilner that the Miami Russians weren't powerful enough to feel the sanction burn.

As he put it, "These are comfortable people, rather than the top people."

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CRC Moves InsureTrust Cyber Broker to Wholesale Division

Alabama-based CRC Group, a wholesale and specialty distributor and part of Truist Insurance Holdings, has shuffled its deck a bit, moving InsureTrust, a cyber coverage broker, from Starwind Specialty.

Starwind was formed in 2021 with the combination of CRC Group’s Specialty Programs and Constellation Affiliated Partners, according to the company’s website. InsureTrust, headquartered in the Atlanta area, has been around for 26 years and has specialized in cyber insurance.

Now, InsureTrust will be part of CRC’s wholesale brokerage division, CRC said in a news release. The move bolsters CRC’s cyber coverage and expands InsureTrust’s network, the company noted. CRC has offices across the United States, and headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama.

InsureTrust President and CEO Christiaan Durdaller will lead the new cyber practice group.

Topics Cyber Agencies

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Companies Linked to Russian Ransomware Hide in Plain Sight

Cybersecurity experts tracing money paid by American businesses to Russian ransomware gangs found it led to one of Moscow’s most prestigious addresses.

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By Andrew E. Kramer

MOSCOW — When cybersleuths traced the millions of dollars American companies, hospitals and city governments have paid to online extortionists in ransom money, they made a telling discovery: At least some of it passed through one of the most prestigious business addresses in Moscow.

The Biden administration has also zeroed in on the building, Federation Tower East, the tallest skyscraper in the Russian capital. The United States has targeted several companies in the tower as it seeks to penalize Russian ransomware gangs, which encrypt their victims’ digital data and then demand payments to unscramble it.

Those payments are typically made in cryptocurrencies, virtual currencies like Bitcoin, which the gangs then need to convert to standard currencies, like dollars, euros and rubles.

That this high-rise in Moscow’s financial district has emerged as an apparent hub of such money laundering has convinced many security experts that the Russian authorities tolerate ransomware operators. The targets are almost exclusively outside Russia, they point out, and in at least one case documented in a U.S. sanctions announcement, the suspect was assisting a Russian espionage agency.

“It says a lot,” said Dmitry Smilyanets, a threat intelligence expert with the Massachusetts-based cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. “Russian law enforcement usually has an answer: ‘There is no case open in Russian jurisdiction. There are no victims. How do you expect us to prosecute these honorable people?’”

Recorded Future has counted about 50 cryptocurrency exchanges in Moscow City, a financial district in the capital, that in its assessment are engaged in illicit activity. Other exchanges in the district are not suspected of accepting cryptocurrencies linked to crime.

Cybercrime is just one of many issues fueling tensions between Russia and the United States, along with the Russian military buildup near Ukraine and a recent migrant crisis on the Belarus-Polish border.

The Treasury Department has estimated that Americans have paid $1.6 billion in ransoms since 2011. One Russian ransomware strain, Ryuk, made an estimated $162 million last year encrypting the computer systems of American hospitals during the pandemic and demanding fees to release the data, according to Chainalysis, a company tracking cryptocurrency transactions.

The hospital attacks cast a spotlight on the rapidly expanding criminal industry of ransomware, which is based primarily in Russia. Criminal syndicates have become more efficient, and brazen, in what has become a conveyor-belt-like process of hacking, encrypting and then negotiating for ransom in cryptocurrencies, which can be owned anonymously.

At a summit meeting in June, President Biden pressed President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to crack down on ransomware after a Russian gang, DarkSide, attacked a major gasoline pipeline on the East Coast, Colonial Pipeline , disrupting supplies and creating lines at gas stations.

American officials point to people like Maksim Yakubets, a skinny 34-year-old with a pompadour haircut whom the United States has identified as a kingpin of a major cybercrime operation calling itself Evil Corp. Cybersecurity analysts have linked his group to a series of ransomware attacks, including one last year targeting the National Rifle Association. A U.S. sanctions announcement accused Mr. Yakubets of also assisting Russia’s Federal Security Service, the main successor to the K.G.B.

But after the State Department announced a $5 million bounty for information leading to his arrest, Mr. Yakubets seemed only to flaunt his impunity in Russia: He was photographed driving in Moscow in a Lamborghini partially painted fluorescent yellow.

The cluster of suspected cryptocurrency exchanges in Federation Tower East, first reported last month by Bloomberg News, further illustrates how the Russian ransomware industry hides in plain sight.

The 97-floor, glass-and-steel high-rise resting on a bend in the Moscow River stands within sight of several government ministries in the financial district, including the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, Signals and Mass Communications .

Two of the Biden administration’s most forceful actions to date targeting ransomware are linked to the tower. In September, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on a cryptocurrency exchange called Suex, which has offices on the 31st floor. It accused the company of laundering $160 million in illicit funds.

In an interview at the time, a founder of Suex, Vasily Zhabykin, denied any illegal activity.

And last month, Russian news media outlets reported that Dutch police, using a U.S. extradition warrant, had detained the owner, Denis Dubnikov, of another firm called EggChange, with an office on the 22nd floor. In a statement issued by one of his companies, Mr. Dubnikov denied any wrongdoing.

Ransomware is attractive to criminals, cybersecurity experts say, because the attacks take place mostly anonymously and online, minimizing the chances of getting caught. It has mushroomed into a sprawling, highly compartmentalized industry in Russia known to cybersecurity researchers as “ransomware as a service.”

The organizational structure mimics franchises, like McDonald’s or Hertz, that lower barriers to entry, allowing less sophisticated hackers to use established business practices to get into the business. Several high-level gangs develop software and promote fearsome-sounding brands, such as DarkSide or Maze, to intimidate businesses and other organizations that are targets. Other groups that are only loosely related hack into computer systems using the brand and franchised software.

The industry’s growth has been abetted by the rise of cryptocurrencies. That has made old-school money mules, who sometimes had to smuggle cash across borders, practically obsolete.

Laundering the cryptocurrency through exchanges is the final step, and also the most vulnerable, because criminals must exit the anonymous online world to appear at a physical location, where they trade Bitcoin for cash or deposit it in a bank.

The exchange offices are “the end of the Bitcoin and ransomware rainbow,” said Gurvais Grigg, a former F.B.I. agent who is a researcher with Chainalysis, the cryptocurrency tracking company.

The computer codes in virtual currencies allow transactions to be tracked from one user to another, even if the owners’ identities are anonymous, until the cryptocurrency reaches an exchange. There, in theory, records should link the cryptocurrency with a real person or company.

“They are really one of the key points in the whole ransomware strain,” Mr. Grigg said of the exchange offices. Ransomware gangs, he said, “want to make money. And until you cash it out, and you get it through an exchange at a cash-out point, you cannot spend it.”

It is at this point, cybersecurity experts say, that criminals should be identified and apprehended. But the Russian government has allowed the exchanges to flourish, saying that it only investigates cybercrime if Russian laws are violated. Regulations are a gray area in Russia, as elsewhere, in the nascent industry of cryptocurrency trading.

Russian cryptocurrency traders say the United States is imposing an unfair burden of due diligence on their companies, given the quickly evolving nature of regulations.

“The people who are real criminals, who create ransomware, and the people working in Moscow City are completely different people,” Sergei Mendeleyev, a founder of one trader based in Federation Tower East, Garantex, said in an interview. The Russian crypto exchanges, he said, were blamed for crimes they are unaware of.

Mr. Mendeleyev, who no longer works at the company, said American cryptocurrency tracking services provide data to non-Russian exchanges to help them avoid illicit transactions but have refused to work with Russian traders — in part because they suspect the traders might use the information to tip off criminals. That complicates the Russian companies’ efforts to root out illegal activity.

He conceded that not all Russian exchanges tried very hard. Some based in Moscow’s financial district were little more than an office, a safe full of cash and a computer, he said.

At least 15 cryptocurrency exchanges are based in Federation Tower East, according to a list of businesses in the building compiled by Yandex, a Russian mapping service.

In addition to Suex and EggChange, the companies targeted by the Biden administration, cyberresearchers and an international cryptocurrency exchange company have flagged two other building tenants that they suspect of illegal activity involving Bitcoin.

The building manager, Aeon Corp., did not respond to inquiries about the exchanges in its offices.

Like the banks and insurance companies they share space with, those firms are likely to have chosen the site for its status and its stringent building security, said Mr. Smilyanets, the researcher at Recorded Future.

“The Moscow City skyscrapers are very fancy,” he said. “They can post on Instagram with these beautiful sights, beautiful skyscrapers. It boosts their legitimacy.”

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misstated the year in which Colonial Pipeline was hacked. It was 2021, not 2020.

How we handle corrections

Andrew E. Kramer is a reporter based in the Moscow bureau. He was part of a team that won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for a series on Russia’s covert projection of power. More about Andrew E. Kramer

Inside the World of Cryptocurrencies

Tigran Gambaryan, an American compliance official for the giant cryptocurrency exchange Binance, flew to Nigeria in February for a planned two-day business trip. Here’s how he ended up in a Nigerian prison .

Two years after the cryptocurrency market crashed, there are signs that crypto is booming again in the Philippines, long a center of crypto activity .

Pushed by a nonprofit with ties to the Trump administration, Arkansas became the first state to shield noisy cryptocurrency operators from unhappy neighbors. A furious backlash has some lawmakers considering a statewide ban .

Ben Armstrong, better known as BitBoy, was once the most popular cryptocurrency YouTuber in the world. Then his empire collapsed .

Federal judges are weighing whether digital currencies should be subject to the same rules as stocks and bonds. The outcome could shape crypto’s future in the United States .

New investment funds that hold Bitcoin have begun trading , and it might be tempting to invest in them. Should you ?

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2 dead after boat collides with yacht in South Florida, police say

• David Goodhue Miami Herald (TNS)

Two men died in a Miami-Dade hospital after the boat they were on collided with a yacht in Biscayne Bay, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife officials.

The crash happened around 6:45 p.m. Sunday off waters near Homestead, Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue said. The cause of the accident is unclear.

The collision was between a 51-foot Azimut yacht with seven people on board and a 17-foot Key West center console boat with two men on board, police with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission noted.

Both the driver and passenger on the Key West vessel were seriously injured and taken to the hospital, where they died, according to Arielle Callender, a fish and wildlife police spokesperson.

Andrea Rudchenco, a Fire Rescue spokesperson, added the men were airlifted to Jackson South Medical Center.

Callender said the crash remains under investigation.

©2024 Miami Herald. Visit  miamiherald.com . Distributed by  Tribune Content Agency LLC.

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Overnight drone attack on Moscow injures 1

3rd attempt to strike capital region this week.

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Three Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow in the early hours on Sunday, Russian authorities said, injuring one person and prompting a temporary closure of traffic in and out of one of four airports around the Russian capital.

It was the fourth such attempt at a strike on the capital region this month and the third this week, fuelling concerns about Moscow's vulnerability to attacks as Russia's war in Ukraine drags into its 18th month.

The Russian Defence Ministry referred to the incident as an "attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime" and said three drones targeted the city. One was shot down in the surrounding Moscow region by air defence systems and two others were jammed. Those two crashed into the Moscow City business district.

Photos from the site of the crash showed the facade of a skyscraper damaged on one floor. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the attack "insignificantly damaged" two buildings in the Moscow City district. A security guard was injured, Russia's state news agency Tass reported, citing emergency officials.

Flights delayed

No flights went into or out of Vnukovo airport on the southern outskirts of the city for about an hour, according to Tass, and the airspace over Moscow and the outlying regions was temporarily closed to all aircraft. Those restrictions have since been lifted.

Moscow authorities have also closed a street to traffic near the site of the crash in the Moscow City area.

Without directly acknowledging that Ukraine was behind the attack on Moscow, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force said that the Russian people were seeing the consequences of Russia's war in Ukraine.

"All of the people who think the war 'doesn't concern them,' it's already touching them," spokesperson Yurii Ihnat told journalists Sunday.

'No discussion of peace'

"There's already a certain mood in Russia: that something is flying in, and loudly," he said. "There's no discussion of peace or calm in the Russian interior any more. They got what they wanted."

Ihnat also referenced a drone attack on Russian-occupied Crimea overnight. Moscow announced Sunday that it had shot down 16 Ukrainian drones and neutralized eight more with an electronic jamming system. There were no casualties, officials said.

In Ukraine, the air force reported that it had destroyed four Russian drones above the country's Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk regions. Information on the attacks could not be independently verified.

Putin blames Ukraine for new drone attack on Moscow

Meanwhile, two people were killed and 20 wounded by a Russian missile strike late Saturday evening on the city of Sumy in northeast Ukraine. A four-storey building belonging to a vocational college was hit, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said. Local authorities said dormitories and teaching buildings were damaged in the blast and the fire that followed.

• Ukraine is moving its Christmas Day holiday to Dec. 25 in defiance of Russia
• Russia raises maximum age for military conscription to 30

Russia's Defence Ministry reported shooting down a Ukrainian drone outside Moscow on Friday. Four days earlier, two drones struck the Russian capital, one of them falling in the centre of the city near the Defence Ministry's headquarters along the Moscow River about three kilometres from the Kremlin. The other drone hit an office building in southern Moscow, gutting several upper floors.

In another attack on July 4, the Russian military said four drones were downed by air defences on the outskirts of Moscow and a fifth was jammed by electronic warfare means and forced down.

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Robert kraft 'deeply saddened' over columbia, university unrecognizable, robert kraft 'deeply saddened' by columbia univ. ... cuts off funding.

• Breaking News

Robert Kraft graduated from Columbia in '63, and has been a huge proponent of the school in every way, including financially ... but all that changed Monday when the billionaire Patriots owner made it clear he wasn't going to stand by and watch his University be taken over by hate and vitriol.

"The school I love so much - the one that welcomed me and provided me with so much opportunity - is no longer an institution I recognize," 82-year-old Kraft said in a statement released by Stand Up To Jewish Hate , adding, "I am deeply saddened at the virulent hate that continues to grow on campus and throughout our country."

Of course, since mid-last week, students and others have taken to Columbia's NYC campus to demand the University sever all ties to Israel. Some protestors have been seen showing support for Hamas and their actions on October 7, even calling for repeated attacks.

The situation has gotten so tense on campus, classes have been switched from in-person to virtual.

Kraft believes the school has lost a handle on the situation, and cannot adequately protect their students.

"I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken. It is my hope that Columbia and its leadership will stand up to this hate by ending these protests immediately and will work to earn back the respect and trust of the many of us who have lost faith in the institution."

While Robert is far from the only alumnus speaking out, he's certainly one of the most influential. In fact, the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life, an on-campus hub for Jewish students, bears his name.

Over the weekend, The White House issued a statement admonishing those at Columbia who aren't peacefully protesting, and rather threatening to harm Jewish students.

"While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous."

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