Putin on Russian oligarch yacht seizures: I warned them about that – they should have kept them in Russia

OLEKSII PAVLYSH – WEDNESDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER 2022, 15:15

Russian President Vladimir Putin believes Russian billionaires should have kept their yachts in Russia so that foreign law enforcement authorities would not have been able to seize them due to sanctions.

He stated this at the Eastern Economic Forum [in Vladivostok], as reported by Kommersant.

Putin remarked that he had "warned" businessmen about the consequences of keeping their possessions outside Russia’s jurisdiction and said the current situation would be a "lesson" for them.

"I told them many times, you know, that it would be hard to protect their interests. They’ve had their belongings seized – bank accounts, boats or whatnot. I warned them about that.

It would have been better if they had left those boats here and invested [their] money in the development of Russian infrastructure instead of foreign assets. They wouldn’t have lost anything, everything would have been here, in their Motherland. And they would have gained income from the money they invested," the Russian president said.

After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine started and sanctions were imposed against Russia, the seizure of assets belonging to sanctioned Russian oligarchs, particularly their yachts, began in Europe.

In May, the Italian authorities arrested the 140-metre yacht Scheherazade, widely believed to be owned by Putin himself, in the port of Marina di Carrara.

In early March, German authorities in Hamburg confiscated a yacht named Dilbar which belongs to Alisher Usmanov, a Russian billionaire who is on the EU sanctions list. Yachts belonging to Alexei Mordashov and Gennady Timchenko have been seized in Italy.

Learn more: "Russian warship, go f**k yourself: Ukrainska Pravda finds Russian oligarchs’ yachts in Europe

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