Italy has captured the world’s largest sailing yacht – Melnichenko’s yacht

A few days after Russian businessman Andrei Igorevich Melnichenko was put on the list of people subject to European Union sanctions, Italian police confiscated his luxury yacht. Those sanctions came after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Melnichenko’s sailing yacht appeals to the imagination. The sailing yacht A., as the ship is called, has a length of 143 meters and a price tag of 530 million euros. The ship was captured in the northern port of Trieste. The yacht was designed by Philippe Starck and built by the German company Nobiskrug. According to the Italian government, the Sailing Yacht A. is the largest sailing yacht on Earth.

Until recently, Melnichenko owned the fertilizer producer EuroChem Group and the SUEK coal company. Both companies announced in a statement Thursday that Melnichenko has resigned from the board of directors of both companies.

Alex Andreev, Melnichenko’s spokesman, emphasized that the businessman had nothing to do with the tragic events in Ukraine, and had no political ties. “There is absolutely no justification for adding it to the EU sanctions list,” he said. We will challenge these unjust and baseless sanctions. We suppose that law and reason will prevail.”

Italian police have confiscated €700m worth of villas and yachts since last week. They were all owned by wealthy Russians who are subject to European Union sanctions.

At the moment, we only dealt with visual targets. “Now we start with things like stocks,” Giuseppe Zavarana, head of the Italian tax police in Bergamo, explained to reporters. The police operations were part of a coordinated action in Western countries to target Russians linked to President Vladimir Putin.

Separately, the yacht Solaris, a luxury yacht for Russian businessman Roman Abramovich, was said to have arrived in the territorial waters of Montenegro on Saturday morning. The boat, this time 140 meters long, left the port of Barcelona on Tuesday to dock a few days later at the luxury resort of Porto Montenegro in Tivat. Britain also imposed sanctions on Abramovich on Thursday because the businessman, according to the British, is close to Putin. His property is frozen. Abramovich himself denied having close relations with the President of Russia.