Countries that have arrested Russian yachts are forced to pay very expensive for their maintenance
About 10% of the value of such vessels must be paid for maintenance, which is millions of dollars
The yachts of Russian oligarchs seized under the sanctions must be maintained in good condition. Therefore, the countries that arrested or confiscated them have to pay millions of euros.
Source. This was reported by RFI with reference to franceinfo.
The most illustrative is the case of yacht A, the world's largest sailing ship, which has been in the port of Trieste for a year because its real owner, probably Russian businessman Andrei Melnichenko, cannot be identified. The ship, whose purchase price was estimated at 417 million euros, has already cost Italian taxpayers more than 7 million euros.
The Dominican Republic also has to pay for the maintenance of one of these vessels – about 10% of the total cost. Some of the yachts are equipped with anti-missile radars, while others have their own submarines or retractable helicopter pads, Alex Finley, a former CIA agent who is now tracking such yachts, told franceinfo.
"All these technologies need support. It doesn't have to work perfectly, but these devices need to be safe for port staff and crew," she says.
Crew members of such vessels often become hostages of luxury yachts, franceinfo notes. This is exactly the situation with the sailors of the 86-meter yacht Amore Vero, owned by Russian billionaire Igor Sechin and moored in La Ciotat, on the Cote d'Azur. But in this case, maintenance is still being carried out through one of the owner's shell companies, franceinfo writes.
France announced the seizure of Igor Sechin's yacht more than a year ago, almost immediately after the start of the full-scale invasion. In June of the same year, the Marseille prosecutor's office launched an investigation into Amore Vero.
In November last year, Bloomberg already reported on the extremely high cost of maintenance of arrested Russian yachts, including the 140-meter superyacht Scheherazade, which is attributed to Russian dictator Putin and confiscated in Italy.
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