Escaping Russia’s sanctions?: Five elite yachts spotted in one place

Survived by Russian sanctions?
Seen five elite yachts in one place

03/02/2022, 5:55 pm

The richest man’s yacht in Russia is, as are the luxury yachts of two industrial billionaires. The ships of the oligarchs seem to be piling up in the Maldives. The country does not extradite to the United States – which recently announced it intends to seize Russian assets.

According to ship data, at least five superyachts currently owned by Russian billionaires are in the Maldives. This includes the “Cleo” owned by Oleg Deripaska, the founder of aluminum giant Rusal, as reported by ship database MarineTraffic. It was already approved by USA in 2018. His ship anchored on Wednesday near the Indian Ocean island nation, which has no extradition treaty with the United States.

Following stringent Western sanctions imposed on Russia for attacking Ukraine, the ships arrived in the archipelago off the coast of Sri Lanka on 24 February. Including “Titan”. It belongs to Alexander Abramov, one of the co-founders of steel maker Evraz. According to the data, three other boats owned by Russian billionaires have also been spotted in Maldivian waters. Among them is the 88-meter-tall “Nirvana”, which belongs to Russia’s richest man: Vladimir Potanin.

White House announces asset search

Most of the ships were last seen at anchor in Middle Eastern ports earlier this year. A spokesman for the Maldivian government did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. The US wants to take strict measures to confiscate the assets of the banned Russians.

“In the coming week we will launch a multilateral transatlantic task force to identify, trace and freeze the assets of sanctioned Russian companies and oligarchs – their boats, their mansions and any other illegal gains we find and under the law. may freeze under,” as the White House recently announced.

Washington had already banned Deripaska and other influential Russians in 2018 for ties with President Vladimir Putin. The reason at the time was suspected Russian interference in the 2016 US elections, which Moscow has denied.