yachts russia

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 .

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Miles Johnson

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On the morning of March 29 2022, Captain Guy Booth was working aboard Phi, a 192ft aquamarine superyacht moored in London’s Canary Wharf, when he heard a commotion below. Down on the pier a car had pulled up and Grant Shapps, then the UK’s transport secretary, emerged from the vehicle, followed by a retinue of aides.

“The first thing we saw was his entourage, several men and women carrying clipboards and make-up and hairbrushes,” says Booth. 

Shapps and his team then began to shoot a video for the social media network TikTok, where the government minister announced that Phi — built in 2021 by the famed Dutch luxury shipbuilder Royal Huisman and worth an estimated £38mn — “belongs to a Russian oligarch, friends of Putin”.

Booth watched in amazement as several television crews who’d been tipped off about the news arrived at the scene. “Shapps was positioning himself like a big game hunter, checking his best angle,” says Booth. “They took several takes.”

Next, a black cab arrived and three officers from the UK’s National Crime Agency got out. They climbed aboard and handed Booth a brown envelope. Inside was a government order: the boat he captained was now detained for being “owned by persons connected with Russia”.

Video description

A video shot by Grant Shapps in Canary Wharf, which shows the yacht Phi after the order to detain it in London

Today, Phi is still moored in the same spot in Canary Wharf outside an Indian restaurant, and with a small skeleton crew aboard. Each day, Booth, along with two engineers, a chief officer, a crew cook and two deck hands wake up on board and dutifully service the vessel.

Its once feted “infinite wine cellar” and seven-metre swimming pool lie unused. A lonely sun lounger sits out on deck, and the yacht’s Maltese maritime flag droops. Pink paint has been applied to its roof to protect it from the risk of dust from nearby building sites. 

Paul Dickie, a lawyer at Jaffa & Co who has represented Phi, claims the boat has been targeted by squatters. A notice on its side warns any would-be trespassers that they will be prosecuted “to the full extent of the law”.

For western nations, the yachts’ fate is a high-stakes test of the effectiveness of sanctions. For the lawyers who work for the owners, these seizures are acts of modern piracy

Phi’s owner, a Russian businessman called Sergei Naumenko, has repeatedly denied any connection to Vladimir Putin or the Russian state, and has twice unsuccessfully appealed to the English courts to have the yacht released. 

In May 2023 an English High Court judge said Shapps’s TikTok video claims that the owner had “close connections to Putin” were “excusable political hyperbole”. The Court of Appeal in March this year said it was “troubled” by Shapps’s “incorrect” statements. Both courts, however, upheld the UK detention order for the vessel.

After Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted western governments to unleash an avalanche of economic sanctions against Russian oligarchs, there are now multiple superyachts like Phi trapped in ports around the world. Several are stuck in seemingly never-ending legal quagmires, with vastly expensive lawyers hired by often opaque offshore owners battling for their release.

Although tens of billions of dollars of Russian-owned luxury assets, including mansions, luxury cars and private jets, have been frozen, it was the symbolism of the seizure of the oligarch superyachts — vast, floating Versailles palaces often worth hundreds of millions of dollars — that captured the public’s imagination. Anti-corruption campaigners hoped at the time that these vessels would be auctioned off and the proceeds could be donated to Ukraine.

Yet more than two years on from the start of the war, the future of these superyachts remains unresolved. Once prized trophies in the west’s co-ordinated response to Russia’s aggression, some have racked up vast maintenance costs for taxpayers, had their angry crews turn fire hoses and drones on snooping reporters, and been the target of sabotage plots by anti-war activists. 

For western governments, resolving the fate of these superyachts will be a high-stakes test of the effectiveness of economic sanctions. For lawyers working for the oligarchs who own them, the seizures are acts of modern piracy.

Perhaps no single vessel exemplifies the array of headaches that seized superyachts have caused western governments more than the Amadea — a $300mn, 348ft boat detained by the US authorities in Fiji in 2022.

Such is its gaudy opulence that the Amadea could be a pastiche of an oligarch’s fantasies. According to a 2021 profile in Boat International, it boasts a Pleyel piano with 24-carat gold pedals, a swimming pool that converts into a stage for DJs, hand-painted Michelangelo clouds on the dining-room ceiling, a lobster tank and a helipad. 

When the US Department of Justice seized the Amadea, it claimed that it was owned by the sanctioned Dagestan-born gold magnate Suleiman Kerimov. The DoJ said he was “part of a group of Russian oligarchs who profit from the Russian government through corruption and its malign activity around the globe”.

Deputy US attorney-general Lisa Monaco announced at the time that the seizure “should tell every corrupt Russian oligarch that they cannot hide”. Not long after Amadea was seized in Fiji, she told the Aspen Security Forum that investigators had even discovered an “alleged Fabergé egg” aboard. It was later found to be an imitation.

The Amadea was then moved by the US authorities from Fiji to San Diego, where it is currently moored. The US government last October brought a civil forfeiture case against the superyacht based on its claim that it was owned by Kerimov. 

We have 60,000 litres of diesel on board. If there are problems with fire detection, that could be very dangerous. You can’t get a fire engine in here’ Captain Guy Booth

During the time the Amadea has been stuck in San Diego, it has racked up maintenance bills of $740,000 a month, or almost $9mn a year, to be paid by the US government. Because of this, the Department of Justice moved to try to sell the boat, arguing that the costs it was incurring were “excessive”. 

Superyachts require constant maintenance and upkeep to keep their seaworthiness, let alone their value. Crew salaries and vast mooring fees must be paid. Hulls must be scraped, engines must be cleaned.

“The water here is brackish, half freshwater and half seawater, so things grow in it,” Booth says about Phi. “We are constantly having to remove biological marine growth from the filters. The teak decks require constant daily attention.”

Sabotage is also a risk. Lady Anastasia, a yacht seized in Mallorca and owned by the CEO of the Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport Alexander Mikheev, in February 2022 was almost destroyed by a Ukrainian mechanic working on the boat who tried to intentionally sink it.

Some boats have simply disappeared. In the summer of 2022, two yachts owned by Dmitry Mazepin, another sanctioned Russian billionaire, vanished from the Sardinian port of Olbia. An investigation by Italy’s financial police, which had seized both yachts shortly after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, found that one had made a stopover in Tunisia before vanishing, while the other was spotted sailing towards Turkey. In response, Italy has hit Mazepin with fines, which remain unpaid.

Booth says he believes Phi has suffered significant damage, as well as lost charter earnings, as a result of being stuck in Canary Wharf. “I am not at liberty to discuss the exact figure,” he says, “but it is huge. We are talking tens of millions of pounds.” 

Because of the freezing order, Phi’s Dutch manufacturer is unable to perform warranty work on the yacht. One of many issues, Booth says, is that he has been unable to fix faulty fire protection systems.

“We have 60,000 litres of diesel on board. If there are problems with the fire detection systems, that could be very dangerous. Exceptionally dangerous. You could have an ecological disaster in central London. You can’t get a fire engine in here.”

In Phi’s case, the costs are all borne by its Russian owner, who — unlike many other owners of frozen yachts — is not sanctioned and has not been proven to have any meaningful connection to the Russian state. He will be able to get this money back from the UK government only if the restriction order is overturned and he can then win a successful damages claim.

For other superyachts, the burden of paying for upkeep falls on the countries where they are being held. Lady M, a yacht owned by the sanctioned Russian steel and mining magnate Alexei Mordashov, has been blocked from leaving the Italian port of Imperia as one of seven yachts belonging to Russian oligarchs in the country.

Another, Sailing Yacht A, designed by Philippe Starck and, at 468ft long, one of the largest private sail-assisted motor yachts in the world, is currently impounded in the port of Trieste. Alleged by the Italian state to be owned by the sanctioned Russian oligarch Andrey Melnichenko, the boat is estimated to have cost the Italian taxpayer more than €18mn in upkeep, according to the local newspaper Il Piccolo. Lawyers for Melnichenko have said he does not personally own the yacht, and instead it is controlled by a trust that has no connection to him.

Costs aside, seizing a superyacht is simple enough, provided it is in the right place. At the time of the invasion, the only way for sanctioned Russian oligarchs to protect their yachts was to be lucky or shrewd enough to not have them in territories or waters where they could be captured. In March 2022, two superyachts belonging to Roman Abramovich, one of them featuring an onboard missile defence system and anti-paparazzi “laser shield”, sailed away from Europe towards Turkey and remain free to this day.

But in an industry where it is common to own vessels through cascades of offshore companies and anonymous trusts, a far trickier task for investigators can be to prove in court who really owns a superyacht once it has been detained.

Legal tussles over the ownership of government-seized assets are common. The difference with the superyachts is the owners’ legal resources, the value of the assets and the cost to the taxpayer

In the case of the Amadea, the US government has been battling in court to prove that Kerimov is its true owner before it can be allowed to sell the yacht and stop paying the vast costs of its upkeep.

The Department of Justice appeared to have strong evidence to back up its claims, including records showing that Kerimov’s family spent large amounts of time on the Amadea, and that his children had requested structural modifications to the superyacht.

However, Kerimov denied ownership. Instead, a different wealthy Russian, Eduard Khudainatov, a former chief executive of the Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft, stepped forward to claim that he, in fact, was the true owner of the Amadea and the seizure was unlawful.

“When you need records from overseas, when you are dealing with shell companies in secrecy jurisdictions, or people are hiding behind nominee owners, it’s going to take a long time,” says Stefan Cassella, a former federal prosecutor who served 30 years in the US Department of Justice specialising in asset forfeiture.

Cassella says these sorts of legal tussles over who owns an asset that has been seized by a government are common. The difference in the case of oligarch-owned superyachts is the legal resources available to the owners fighting the seizures, the size and value of the assets, and the cost to the taxpayer of keeping them afloat.

“We litigate this all the time,” Cassella tells me. “Say a drug agent sees a dealer dealing from a Mercedes car and they want to seize it. He claims it’s not his car, that his mother or sister owns it. We then need to litigate with that person to see if they are really the owner. Who pays the insurance? Who brought it in to get oil changed? Whose garage is it sitting in? This is the same, just on a much larger scale.”

The US responded in a court filing to Khudainatov’s claim to own the Amadea by accusing him of being a “clean, unsanctioned straw owner” serving as a front for Kerimov. Khudainatov’s lawyers have denied he is a straw owner and say he is the legal owner of the yacht.

The picture was further muddied when it was alleged by the US in court documents that Khudainatov, who in June 2022 was placed under EU sanctions, was the fake owner of another, even more valuable and mysterious super yacht, the Scheherazade — which he has denied.

The Scheherazade, one of the longest yachts in the world, worth an estimated $700mn, was seized by the Italian authorities in the Tuscan port of Marina di Carrara in May 2022 because of its suspected “meaningful economic and business connections with prominent elements of the Russian government subject to EU sanctions”.

In 2022 the now deceased Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation published an investigation that claimed that the Scheherazade was in fact owned by Putin himself, based on the fact that many of its crew were agents of the Federal Protective Service, a state security unit responsible for the Russian president’s personal safety.

The US authorities have argued it is impossible that one man could own so many yachts, writing in court documents that “there is no reason to believe [Khudainatov] has the financial resources to purchase the Amadea and the Scheherazade, or is there any apparent reason why a single individual would own multiple superyachts of their size”.

Whoever is the true owner of the Scheherazade, they have not let its seizure dim their ambitions. During the time it has been held in Tuscany, the Italian government has allowed the owner to pay for an expensive refurbishment. It is a decoration job that the owner clearly wants to conduct in privacy. When reporters from Radio Free Europe tried to get close to the vessel earlier this year the Scheherazade’s crew turned on fire hoses, and deployed a drone to follow them.

Meanwhile, last month a New York court ruled that the US government was not allowed to sell the Amadea, meaning that US taxpayers will have to continue for now to foot the bill for its upkeep. 

Even if governments are able to establish ownership and get court permission to sell a superyacht, further legal complexities can make finding a buyer difficult. In June 2023 the Alfa Nero, a yacht alleged to be owned by the US-sanctioned phosphate billionaire Andrey Guryev, which has been impounded in Falmouth Harbor, Antigua, was sold at auction for $67mn to former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt.

The deal later fell apart, with the US ambassador to Antigua announcing that Schmidt backed out of the purchase because he was worried about future legal problems if he bought it.

Yulia Guryeva-Motlokhov, Guryev’s daughter, this year launched a challenge to the Antiguan government’s decision to seize and sell the Alfa Nero, claiming that she is the sole beneficiary of the trust that owns the yacht, rather than her father. The case is expected to be heard in September.

Back in the UK, Booth, the captain of Phi, believes that the yacht and its owner have been unfairly caught up in events outside of their control. “He’s not a billionaire, he’s never met Putin,” Booth says of Phi’s owner Sergei Naumenko. “He’s against the war. He’s just a private Russian gentleman who likes boats.” 

Phi will make another bid to be freed in the UK’s Supreme Court, in an appeal to be heard next January.

Captain Booth says he will not desert his ship. “My team and I have remained on board, remained loyal. I’ve won numerous awards for what I do in my industry. I could have left almost straight away, and said, ‘This is not my bag, I’m off to captain another superyacht in the Med’ . . . I would not sleep well at night if I abandoned this owner.”

But Booth and his crew may be waiting a long time. Cassella, the forfeiture lawyer, says he expects many cases to drag on for as long as a decade. “I thought two years ago when all the superyachts were seized that 10 years was an appropriate timeframe,” he says. “This is not going to be resolved any time soon.”

Miles Johnson is an investigative reporter for the FT. His book ‘Chasing Shadows: A True Story of Drugs, War and The Secret World of International Crime’ is now out in paperback

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