russian superyacht

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

U.S. wins case to seize Russian superyacht in Fiji, sails away

The United States won a legal battle on Tuesday to seize a Russian-owned superyacht in Fiji and wasted no time in taking command of the $325 million vessel and sailing it away from the South Pacific nation.

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.

In Fiji, the nation’s Supreme Court lifted a stay order which had prevented the U.S. from seizing the superyacht Amadea.

Chief Justice Kamal Kumar ruled that based on the evidence, the chances of defense lawyers mounting an appeal that the top court would hear were “nil to very slim.”

Kumar said he accepted arguments that keeping the superyacht berthed in Fiji at Lautoka harbor was “costing the Fijian government dearly.”

“The fact that U.S. authorities have undertaken to pay costs incurred by the Fijian government is totally irrelevant,” the judge found. He said the Amadea “sailed into Fiji waters without any permit and most probably to evade prosecution by the United States of America.”

The U.S. removed the motorized vessel within an hour or two of the court’s ruling, possibly to ensure the yacht didn’t get entangled in any further legal action.

In early May, the Justice Department issued a statement saying the Amadea had been seized in Fiji, but that turned out to be premature after lawyers appealed.

It wasn’t immediately clear where the U.S. intended to take the Amadea, which the FBI has linked to the Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov.

Fiji Director of Public Prosecutions Christopher Pryde said unresolved questions of money laundering and the ownership of the Amadea need to be decided in the U.S.

“The decision acknowledges Fiji’s commitment to respecting international mutual assistance requests and Fiji’s international obligations,” Pryde said.

In court documents, the FBI linked the Amadea to the Kerimov family through their alleged use of code names while aboard and the purchase of items such as a pizza oven and a spa bed. The ship became a target of Task Force KleptoCapture, launched in March to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs to put pressure on Russia to end the war.

The 348-foot -long vessel, about the length of a football field, features a live lobster tank, a hand-painted piano, a swimming pool and a large helipad.

Lawyer Feizal Haniff, who represented paper owner Millemarin Investments, had argued the owner was another wealthy Russian who, unlike Kerimov, doesn’t face sanctions.

The U.S. acknowledged that paperwork appeared to show Eduard Khudainatov was the owner but said he was also the paper owner of a second and even larger superyacht, the Scheherazade, which has been linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The U.S. questioned whether Khudainatov could really afford two superyachts worth a total of more than $1 billion.

“The fact that Khudainatov is being held out as the owner of two of the largest superyachts on record, both linked to sanctioned individuals, suggests that Khudainatov is being used as a clean, unsanctioned straw owner to conceal the true beneficial owners,” the FBI wrote in a court affidavit.

Court documents say the Amadea switched off its transponder soon after Russia invaded Ukraine and sailed from the Caribbean through the Panama Canal to Mexico, arriving with over $100,000 in cash. It then sailed thousands of miles (kilometers) across the Pacific Ocean to Fiji.

The Justice Department said it didn’t believe paperwork showing the Amadea was next headed to the Philippines, arguing it was really destined for Vladivostok or elsewhere in Russia.

The department said it found a text message on a crew member’s phone saying, “We’re not going to Russia” followed by a “shush” emoji.

The U.S. said Kerimov secretly bought the Cayman Island-flagged Amadea last year through various shell companies.

Kerimov made a fortune investing in Russian gold producer Polyus, with Forbes magazine putting his net worth at $14.5 billion. The U.S. first sanctioned him in 2018 after he was detained in France and accused of money laundering there, sometimes arriving with suitcases stuffed with 20 million euros.

Khudainatov is the former chairman and chief executive of Rosneft, the state-controlled Russian oil and gas company.

16 superyachts owned by Russian oligarchs

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

March 23, 2022

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Seized Russian-owned yacht Amadea finally sets sail from Fiji under U.S. control

By Graham Kates

Updated on: June 7, 2022 / 11:44 AM EDT / CBS News

The Amadea, a Russian-owned superyacht, set sail from Fiji Tuesday bearing a U.S. flag, ending weeks of legal and administrative hurdles that had stalled American efforts to seize the $300 million vessel it says is owned by a sanctioned oligarch.

U.S. Justice Department officials had been stymied by a frenzied legal effort by the Amadea's owner to contest the American seizure warrant, and a yacht crew that refused to sail for the U.S.

Fiji's Supreme Court ultimately weighed in Tuesday, clearing the U.S. to take the 348-foot ship.  The Amadea boasts luxury features such as a helipad, a mosaic-tiled pool, a lobster tank and a pizza oven, nestled in a décor of "delicate marble and stones" and "precious woods and delicate silk fabrics," according to court documents.

The ship was targeted by the Justice Department's Kleptocapture task force, a team devoted to seizing the luxury assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs , as part of U.S. efforts to punish Russia for its deadly war in Ukraine. Legislation supported by President Biden that has passed the House of Representatives, but not the Senate, would allow the U.S. to sell the Amadea and direct the proceeds toward the Ukraine war and recovery effort.

Today, with authorization from the Fijian High Court and under a new flag, the Amadea set sail for the United States after having been seized as the proceeds of criminal evasion of US sanctions against Russian oligarch Suleyman Kerimov. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/JHiYUDKcmQ — Anthony Coley (@AnthonyColeyDOJ) June 7, 2022

The U.S. claims the Amadea is owned by sanctioned gold mining billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, but a Fijian lawyer for the holding company the ship is registered to has said the U.S. is incorrect.

The lawyer, Feizel Haniff, said the true owner is Eduard Khudainatov, a Russian oil executive who was sanctioned by the European Union on June 4 but has not been sanctioned by the U.S. The Amadea is one of at least two massive superyachts — with a combined value of about $1 billion — owned by holding companies tied to Eduard Khudainatov

American officials are dismissive of his claim to the yachts, arguing he's not rich enough to own them. An FBI agent wrote in a warrant that Khudainatov is "a second-tier oligarch (at best) who would not have anywhere near the resources to purchase and maintain more than $1 billion worth of luxury yachts."

U.S. officials claim in court documents that Khudainatov is a "straw man" for the sanctioned Russian elite who really own the yachts. 

Haniff declined to comment on Fiji's decision Tuesday to end the legal saga that began in April , when U.S. officials accompanied Fijian police in boarding the ship to interview crew and pore through records on the ship's computers.

Those same police would later escort U.S. officials off the ship after they boarded on the morning of May 7 and demanded the captain "immediately handover the Amadea with all available key personnel," according to a sworn affidavit by the captain, filed in Fiji court.

The day before, a Fiji court had effectively frozen the ship in place, issuing a stay of a previous ruling authorizing the U.S. to take it. 

But even without that stay, the U.S. faced an unexpected hurdle. The crew, whose pay had already been frozen due to sanctions, were "refusing to sail on the Amadea with the U.S. authorities to an unknown destination," the captain wrote in his affidavit. He added that they feared cooperating with the U.S., in breach of their contracts with the ship's owner, would damage their reputations in the yachting industry.

By the end of May, contractors for the U.S. had hired a new crew of 24, led by a captain who had previously been at the helm of the Amadea.

On Tuesday, Fiji's Supreme Court ruled that the ship needed to be turned over to the U.S. in order for Fiji to comply with the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. 

Fiji's top prosecutor said in a statement to media organizations that "the court accepted the validity of the US warrant and agreed that issues concerning money laundering and ownership need to be decided in the court of original jurisdiction," in this case, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

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Graham Kates is an investigative reporter covering criminal justice, privacy issues and information security for CBS News Digital. Contact Graham at [email protected] or [email protected]

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Amadea, a superyacht, docked at the Port of Everett on Monday, April 29, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)

How did a Russian oligarch’s seized superyacht end up in Everett?

Worth more than $300 million, the Amadea could soon be up for sale. But first, it came to Everett on Monday.

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The U.S. seized Russian oligarchs' superyachts. Now, American taxpayers pay the price

Ayesha Rascoe

Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Stephanie Baker, senior writer at Bloomberg News, about the complications involved in seizing and maintaining superyachts owned by sanctioned Russian billionaires.

Copyright © 2022 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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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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US alleges sanctioned Russian oligarch’s niece made payments for his $300M yacht

The yacht, known as the Amadea, was seized by officials in 2022, with the U.S. alleging billionaire Putin ally Suleiman Kerimov is the ultimate beneficial owner.

U.S. authorities claim to be one step closer to proving a seized $300 million mega yacht is owned by sanctioned Russian Suleiman Kerimov, according to new court filings that detail alleged payments for the boat from the oligarch’s niece.

The yacht, a 348-foot luxury vessel known as Amadea, was seized in Fiji in 2022 by local officials at the request of the United States, as part of the Justice Department’s ongoing efforts to identify and seize assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Kerimov, known for throwing lavish parties and for his reportedly close relationship with Vladimir Putin, was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018. Britain and the European Union later followed suit.

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However, since the Amadea’s seizure, another Russian oligarch, Eduard Khudainatov, who is not currently under U.S. sanctions, has claimed to be the yacht’s rightful owner — an assertion U.S. authorities deny.

Prosecutors allege that new documents show Kerimov’s niece, Alisa Gadzhieva, entered into a loan agreement with the company that owns the yacht, Errigal Marine Limited, and then made two payments to Khudainatov’s holding company, Invest International Finance Ltd, Intelligence Online reported .

“The United States takes sanction evasion seriously and will use all tools at its disposal to ensure that sanctioned individuals are held accountable for their crimes,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in an earlier statement . 

The ship belongs to an array of high-value luxury items linked to Kerimov, including private jets and sportscars, like a $650,000 Ferrari that Kerimov totaled in a fiery crash on the French Riviera in 2006. 

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The yacht’s seizure followed ICIJ’s Pandora Papers, which included revelations on the offshore financial empire of Kerimov and his closest associates. The investigation showed billions of dollars flowing through opaque offshore shell companies associated with Kerimov, and covert money flows tied to oligarchs and others close to the Kremlin. It also highlighted offshore professionals who have helped oligarchs secretly buy luxury assets like yachts and jets.

Gadzhieva’s brother, Kerimov’s nephew Nariman Gadzhiev, is also under U.S. sanctions for allegedly serving as an assistant and financial facilitator for Kerimov. ICIJ’s reporting showed that, in 2012, a firm registered in Gadzhiev’s name worked with Credit Suisse to secure a $67 million loan for the acquisition of a custom-built Boeing 737 Business Jet as well as a Bombardier Global Express jet. A few years later, an article in Forbes Russia described Kerimov as owning the same kind of Boeing jet.

The Amadea, which is currently in U.S. custody, has already cost over $7 million in taxpayer funds to maintain while the legal battle plays out, The Guardian reported.  

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A seized superyacht shows up in Everett — minus one Russian oligarch owner

EVERETT — It’s not clear whether Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov had plans to visit Puget Sound this spring — the French Riviera is more the style of the U.S.-sanctioned mining and energy multibillionaire.

But Monday morning, the Amadea, a 348-foot, $300 million-plus superyacht said to be owned by Kerimov, arrived in the Port of Everett to have some work done at a local shipyard. 

A sleek, white shark of a ship with a knifelike bow, raked profile and quarters for 16 guests and 36 crew, Amadea swanned past Everett’s industrial waterfront with a tug escort and all the made-for-TV glamour of an international celebrity fugitive. Kerimov, of course, was not on board.

In 2022, Amadea (“God’s love” in Latin) was seized in Fiji at the request of U.S. authorities who claim Kerimov has enabled Russian aggression in Ukraine and Syria. Money laundering and conspiracy were also alleged.

At the time, the seizure was hailed as a warning to “every corrupt Russian oligarch that they cannot hide — not even in the remotest part of the world,” as a deputy U.S. attorney general put it in a press statement . 

But as any boat owner in this boat-focused community will tell you , seizing a superyacht is one thing. Maintaining its value as an asset is another — especially when the asset is the size of a ferry and equipped with a theater, a gym, beauty salon, teak decks, 30-foot-long pool, helipad and twin 5,766-horsepower diesels. 

“They’re saying it’s costing us $7 million a year to keep it up,” said Chris Petersen, a retired fisherman who runs a metal coatings shop on West Marine View Drive, a few blocks from the port and who, like many here, has been following the superyacht saga since Monday.

Indeed, fuel, maintenance, insurance and salary for the crew of Amadea during its impoundment in San Diego ran around $740,000 a month, according to federal court filings by the Marshals Service. 

In February, the Justice Department told a federal court it intended to halt this “excessive … drain on the public” purse by auctioning off Amadea, which the government claims Kerimov acquired in 2021.

But selling off this excessive drain has been complicated. 

There is litigation challenging Amadea’s seizure because the vessel allegedly wasn’t owned by Kerimov, but by another Russian oligarch, who is not sanctioned, according to court papers. 

Another complication, more relevant to Everett: Amadea’s insurance policy, according to court filings, requires service that can only be done by hauling the vessel out of the water — a job that appears to be slated for the dry dock facilities at Everett Ship Repair, on the port’s East Waterway. 

Few details of the project have been shared. Port officials have referred all questions to Everett Ship Repair, whose vice president of service sales, Lane Richards, politely declined to comment.

But a Justice Department spokesperson confirmed Thursday that Amadea was indeed “in Washington for standard dry dock maintenance.”

And on Wednesday, the vessel in question could be seen berthed, like a slightly lost Imperial Starship, on the south side of Pier 3, adjacent to Everett Ship Repair’s dry dock and the Washington State Ferry Salish. 

All the no-commenting has only added to the atmosphere of maritime intrigue and speculation in a town ordinarily unperturbed by big, secrecy-shrouded ships, including those at the nearby Everett Naval Station. 

Many here wonder why the U.S. government spent the money to bring Amadea all the way to Everett, when there are dry dock facilities in San Diego, San Francisco and Portland; even Seattle is 5 nautical miles closer to San Diego. 

Amadea’s fuel burn “is probably in the 8-to-10 gallons per mile range,” said Dennis Butterfield, a retired car dealership manager and former boat owner, as he kept an eye on the Russian superyacht Wednesday from a viewpoint on Warren Avenue. “That’s the United States government at work, if you ask me.”

Butterfield’s estimate was close: based on vessel specifications featured on the yachting website, YachCharterFleet , the 4,400-ton Amadea burns roughly 11 gallons per mile at a cruising speed of 15 mph.

The Justice Department declined to justify Amadea’s four-day journey from San Diego to Everett.

Such secrecy would likely suit Kerimov, who Forbes once described as “one of the most private Russian billionaires,” and who is also said to have close ties to the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The 58-year-old serves in the Russian Federation Senate, is reportedly worth nearly $11 billion and has owned villas on the French Riviera and elsewhere.

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He may also have owned a rare Fabergé egg, according to accounts of the search of the Amadea after its seizure .

Beginning in 2017, Kerimov was listed by U.S. officials as one of a number of Russian oligarchs “who profit from the Russian government through corruption and its malign activity around the globe .”

In March 2022, after the FBI reportedly linked Kerimov to the Amadea , the vessel was seized under a program known as Task Force KleptoCapture and eventually sailed to San Diego under an American flag.

But Amadea’s more recent trip likely had less to do with the vessel’s checkered lineage than with a shortage of West Coast dry dock capacity, especially for large vessels. 

Unlike the East Coast and the Gulf Coast, ship repair infrastructure on the West Coast is “is woefully undersized,” said Craig Hooper, a former naval ship building industry executive who writes and advises on security and defense issues.

In recent decades, several private shipyards with dry dock facilities have closed and building new capacity faces high costs and regulatory hurdles, Hooper said. As a result, “long transits to an open facility are relatively commonplace these days,” he added. 

In the case of the Amadea, Hooper hypothesized, “the responsible party may have put the job out for bid and an Everett yard was the available, lowest-cost option.”

According to court filings, Amadea’s dry dock work is expected to cost $5.6 million and take two months. 

By that time, federal officials may have sorted Amadea’s other complications. 

Last fall, attorneys for Eduard Khudainatov, the former head of state-owned oil company Rosneft, claimed Amadea isn’t owned by Kerimov, but by Khudainatov. Attorneys argue that since Khudainatov wasn’t under sanctions, the yacht was “not forfeitable, as it neither constitutes nor is derived from any unlawful activity.”

But federal prosecutors contend “that Khudainatov is just a straw owner put forward to disguise Kerimov’s ownership of the vessel,” according to an April 19 filing in a federal court in New York, where the case is ongoing.

In the meantime, Everett will take some pleasure in the Amadea’s august presence. 

Port of Everett officials, though tight-lipped about the vessel’s particulars, were clearly pleased by the message it sends of the port’s growing status as a maritime hub.

“Anything that puts Everett on the international map is a good thing!” said Kate Anderson, port spokesperson, in an email response to an inquiry about the Amadea.

Locals, too, appeared to be enjoying the celebrity by association.

“That magnitude of wealth — it’s just another world,” said Petersen, the retired fisherman.

Others wondered who would be foolish enough to buy a vessel whose ownership was being contested by Russian oligarchs.

But mostly, folks here appeared to sympathize with Uncle Sam’s desire to be rid of the costly, controversial craft. 

That was the sentiment of John Mostrom, who had taken a break from mowing his lawn Wednesday to peer down at the Amadea from the Warren Avenue overlook. 

“They say the two happiest days of a boat owner’s life,” Mostrom noted, “are when they buy the boat and when they sell it.”

The opinions expressed in reader comments are those of the author only and do not reflect the opinions of The Seattle Times.

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Bayesian superyacht ‘sank with Mike Lynch’s two hyper-encrypted hard drives that may contain MI5 secrets’

• James Halpin
• Published : 13:48, 17 Sep 2024
• Updated : 14:24, 17 Sep 2024

THE Bayesian superyacht sank with Mike Lynch's two hyper-encrypted hard drives that may contain MI5 secrets, reports Italian media.

The billionaire businessman tragically died with his daughter on board the doomed yacht off the coast of Sicily last month when the vessel was hit by a tornado.

Reports claim the tech entrepreneur had a pair of hard drives that may hold secret information on the world's most powerful spy agencies on board.

Divers are now scouring the sea floor for the crucial disks at the bottom of the sea before they fall into the wrong hands, reports La Repubblica - Italy's second-biggest newspaper.

Sources told the paper the disks held: "the great digital archive of the IT entrepreneur whose clients included the British MI5, the American NSA and the Israeli services".

The Italian newspaper said the "super drives" are protected by "cutting-edge encryption".

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But the drives now could be a target for the hostile spy agencies of Russia, China, and Iran as they seek to steal valuable secrets.

Lynch reportedly did not trust the cloud to save his high-level business secrets so always had the hard drives on him.

The billionaire partly made his wealth by creating algorithms and software widely used by top Western security agencies.

His company Autonomy won high-profile contracts with governments, including a deal to provide infrastructure to the US Homeland Security for the post-9/11 war on terror.

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The Bayesian is also reported to hold other documents in the ship's safe that could also be highly valuable.

James Bond fan Lynch also co-founded the cybersecurity company Darktrace and employed high-ranking intelligence agents for the firm.

Investigators from Palermo have pulled no personal effects of the seven victims and 15 survivors from the ocean yet.

But last week, divers recovered surveillance equipment from the yacht that will hopefully be able to shed light on its final moments afloat.

Divers have also recovered the ship's onboard hard drives as they continue their investigation.

However, the ship had no black box and there are worries the Bayesian's hard drives may not be water resistant.

The captain of the doomed Bayesian,  James Cutfield, 51, is being investigated for manslaughter .

Kiwi Cutfield, along with two other members of his crew, are being investigated by Italian authorities for culpable shipwreck and multiple manslaughter.

Prosecutors are also probing ship engineer  Tim Parker-Eaton, from Clophill, Beds, and sailor Matthew Griffith, 22  under the same charges.

The 184 ft Bayesian was carrying 22 people when it sank within minutes of being hit by a downburst - a strong, localised wind - while anchored in Porticello near Palermo.

The luxury vessel was caught up in a tornado which caused it to sink in the early hours of the morning.

Fifteen of those on board were rescued on a life raft, while the yacht’s cook Recaldo Thomas was discovered dead in the water shortly afterwards.

Specialist divers recovered the bodies of billionaire Lynch, 59, and four of his guests, from the first cabin on the left.

Officials said the victims had scrambled to reach air pockets in the yacht, which sank 164ft stern-first before rolling onto its right side on the seabed. 

Investigators are understood to be rifling through CCTV footage and photographs taken by locals on the night of the storm to understand why the boat sank so quickly. 

Chief Prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said the victims would have been asleep when a tornado-like waterspout struck the boat, leaving them unable to escape.

Lynch had just won a court case over the sale of Autonomy to tech giant HP after being accused of fraudulently raising the price.

The 59-year-old had been living under house arrest in San Francisco, US, with just his beloved dog Faucet for company, for well over a year.

He was finally acquitted just months ago and spoke about longing to spend time with his wife, Angela Bacares and their two daughters.

In 1996, he started software company Autonomy, which would be used to analyse huge swathes of data from unstructured sources like phone calls, emails and videos.

Describing his small team he said: “Eccentric people working really hard on a project. No bureaucracy. No admin. Lots of late nights, lots of eating cold pizza”.

Autonomy became an instant success and benefitted from the dotcom boom, which led it to join the FTSE 100 of top UK listed companies. 

The achievements with Mike, the chief executive officer, at the helm led to considerable praise including receiving an OBE for services to enterprise in 2006. 

Inside The Bayesian's final 16 minutes

By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter

Data recovered from the Bayesian's Automatic Identification System (AIS) breaks down exactly how it sank in a painful minute-by-minute timeline.

At 3.50am on Monday August 19 the Bayesian began to shake "dangerously" during a fierce storm, Italian outlet  Corriere  revealed.

Just minutes later at 3.59am the boat's anchor gave way, with a source saying the data showed there was "no anchor left to hold".

After the ferocious weather ripped away the boat's mooring it was dragged some 358 metres through the water.

By 4am it had began to take on water and was plunged into a blackout, indicating that the waves had reached its generator or even engine room.

At 4.05am the  Bayesian fully disappeared  underneath the waves.

An emergency GPS signal was finally emitted at 4.06am to the coastguard station in Bari, a city nearby, alerting them that the vessel had sunk.

Early reports suggested the disaster struck around 5am local time off the coast of Porticello Harbour in Palermo, Sicily.

The new data pulled from the boat's AIS appears to suggest it happened an hour earlier at around 4am.

Some 15 of the 22 onboard were rescued, 11 of them scrambling onto an inflatable life raft that sprung up on the deck.

A smaller nearby boat - named Sir Robert Baden Powell - then helped take those people to shore.

• Bayesian yacht sinks

Russia captures Ukrainsk town in east Ukraine: reports

Ukrainian emergency service workers and police evacuate civilians from the village of Ukrainsk, close to the front line in the direction of Pokrovsk, in Ukrainsk, Ukraine on August 24. Photo / Getty Images

Russian forces have captured the Ukrainian town of Ukrainsk in the eastern Donetsk region as they advanced westwards in a bid to take the whole of the Donbas, Russian state-run RIA news agency and pro-Russian war bloggers report.

Russian troops raised their flag on a mine ventilation shaft on the outskirts of the town, which had a population of more than 10,000 people before the war, RIA said, citing an unidentified source in the Russian military.

“Ukrainsk is ours,” said Yuri Podolyaka, an Ukrainian-born pro-Russian military blogger, adding that Russian forces had taken the city “almost intact” allowing them to use it as a base for further offensive operations.

There was no immediate comment from the Russian or Ukrainian defence ministries.

Reuters was unable to immediately verify battlefield claims from either side due to reporting restrictions in the war zone.

Russian forces had encircled Ukrainsk earlier this month as they advanced westwards towards Pokrovsk, part of what Russian President Vladimir Putin says is a primary goal to take all of the Donbas region.

Podolyaka said that Hirnyk, a town to the south with a pre-war population of about 10,000, and Selydove, a town to the north with a pre-war population of more than 20,000, were the next targets.

Since Russia sent its army into Ukraine in February 2022, the war has largely been a story of grinding artillery and drone strikes along a heavily fortified 1000km front involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

Russia in August advanced at its fastest monthly pace in two years, according to open source maps, although Ukraine also took a chunk of Russia’s Kursk region in a surprise August 6 incursion.

Russian forces, which have taken about a fifth of Ukraine, control 98.5 per cent of the Luhansk region and 60% of the Donetsk region, according to the same sources.

Together, the two regions make up the Donbas, which is the cradle of the war.

After a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan Revolution, Russia annexed Crimea and pro-Russian protests broke out in parts of the Donbas, where Russia began supporting separatist forces.

Russia said on Tuesday it had repelled five new attempts by Ukrainian forces to smash through its border into the Kursk region, bringing the total number of reported attacks on the border to 26 in just the past six days.

The number of Ukrainians and Russians killed or wounded in the war has reached roughly one million, the Wall Street Journal reported.

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British tech magnate Mike Lynch, 2 US citizens among missing after luxury yacht sinks off Sicily

15 people were rescued and one body believed to be the cook was found near the wreck, but six others were unaccounted for and believed inside the hull, by andrea rosa and nicole winfield | the associated press • published august 19, 2024 • updated on august 19, 2024 at 6:21 pm.

British tech magnate Mike Lynch and five other people were missing after their luxury sailing yacht sank during a freak storm off Sicily early Monday, Italy’s civil protection and authorities said. Lynch’s wife and 14 other people survived.

Lynch, who was  acquitted in June  in a big U.S. fraud trial, was among six people who remain unaccounted for after their chartered sailboat sank off Porticello, when a tornado over the water known as a waterspout struck the area overnight, said Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s civil protection agency.

One body was recovered, and police divers spent the day trying to reach the hull of the ship, which was resting at a depth of 50 meters (163 feet) off Porticello where it had been anchored, rescue authorities said. They returned to the site after 10 p.m. to see if it would be possible to search through the night, when weather conditions were expected to worsen, said Luca Cari, spokesman of the fire rescue service.

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It had a crew of 10 people and 12 passengers, the Italian coast guard said. A sudden fierce storm had battered the area overnight, and struck the place precisely where the 56-meter (184-foot) British-flagged Bayesian had been moored.

“They were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Cocina, noting that another superyacht nearby wasn't as badly damaged and helped rescue some of the 15 survivors, who included Lynch's wife Angela Bacares.

The Bayesian was notable for its single 75-meter (246-feet) mast — one of the world’s tallest made of aluminum and which was lit up at night, just hours before it sank. Online charter sites listed it for rent for up to 195,000 euros (about $215,000) a week.

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One of the survivors, identified as Charlotte Golunski, said she momentarily lost hold of her 1-year-old daughter Sofia in the water, but then managed to hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety, Italian news agency ANSA reported, quoting the mother. The father, James Emsley, also survived, said Cocina.

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Karsten Borner, the captain of the Sir Robert Baden Powell, said he had noticed the Bayesian nearby during the storm but after it calmed he saw a red flare and realized the ship had simply disappeared, ANSA and the Giornale di Sicilia newspaper reported. Borner said he and a crew member boarded their tender and found a lifeboat with 15 people, some of them injured, who they then took aboard and alerted the coast guard.

Eight of those rescued were hospitalized while the others were taken to a hotel. One body believed to be the cook was found near the wreck, but six others were unaccounted for and believed inside the hull, said Cari, the fire rescue spokesperson. The rescue operations, which were visible from shore, involved helicopters and rescue boats from the coast guard, fire rescue and civil protection service.

#Palermo , naufragio imbarcazione a Porticello: recuperato dai #sommozzatori dei #vigilidelfuoco il corpo senza vita di un uomo, all’esterno del relitto. Proseguono le operazioni di ricerca con il coordinamento in mare della @guardiacostiera [ #19agosto 11:30] pic.twitter.com/Y2m9o5ohCe — Vigili del Fuoco (@vigilidelfuoco) August 19, 2024

Fisherman Francesco Cefalu’ said he had seen a flare from shore at around 4:30 a.m. and immediately set out to the site but by the time he got there, the Bayesian had already sunk, with only cushions, wood and other items from the superyacht floating in the water.

“But for the rest, we didn’t find anyone,” he said from the port hours later. He said that he immediately alerted the coast guard and stayed on site for three hours, but didn't find any survivors. “I think they are inside, all the missing people.”

He said he had been up early to check the weather to see if he could go fishing, and surmised that a sudden waterspout had struck the yacht.

“It could be that the mast broke, or the anchor at the prow pulled it, I don’t know,” he said.

Cocina said the crew and passengers hailed from a variety of countries: In addition to Britain and the United States, passengers and crew were from Antigua, France, Germany, Ireland, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain, he said.

Among the dead and missing, four were British, two were American, and one was a man with dual citizenship from Canada and Antigua, according to Luciano Pischedda, the Italian Coast Guard official overseeing the rescue operations.

The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch is deploying a team of four inspectors to Italy to conduct a preliminary assessment. The Foreign Commonwealth and Development office said it was “providing consular support to a number of British nationals and their families.”

Dutch foreign ministry spokesperson Casper Soetekouw said the lone Dutch citizen on board, a man, had been rescued and was not in life-threatening condition.

Lynch, once hailed as Britain’s king of technology, was cleared in June of fraud and conspiracy charges related to Hewlett Packard’s $11 billion takeover of his company, Autonomy Corp.

The not-guilty verdicts followed an 11-week criminal trial in San Francisco that delved into the history of HP’s  2011 acquisition  of Autonomy, a business software firm founded by Lynch.

The  fraud accusations  represented a dramatic turn in the fortunes of an entrepreneur once described as the Bill Gates of Britain — a title he seemed to live up to when he netted an $800 million from the Autonomy sale.

The acquittal vindicated Lynch, who had vehemently denied wrong doing and portrayed HP as a technological train wreck.

“I’m looking forward to returning the UK and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field,” Lynch said in a statement released after the verdict.

The yacht, built in 2008 by the Italian firm Perini Navi, can accommodate 12 passengers in four double cabins, a triple and the master suite, plus crew accommodations, according to Charter World and Yacht Charters.

The vessel, which previously was named Salute when it flew under a Dutch flag, featured a sleek, minimalist interior of light wood with Japanese accents designed by the French designer Remi Tessier, according to descriptions and photos on the charter sites.

AP writers Danica Kirka and Sylvia Hui contributed from London.

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