BRUSSELS – Five 'Russian oligarchs' who each have a yacht moored in Italy may have their boats seized by authorities in line with sanctions laid out by the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola, reports Il Fatto Quotidiano.

 On Monday another 26 Russian oligarchs were added to the list of those being sanctioned. "Their super yachts should not find a place in the ports of our Europe,” said President Metsola, at an EU plenary session on the Russia-Ukraine war.

  Billionaire businessmen Gennady Timchenko, founder of Volga energy and transport group, and Alexey Mordashov, chairman of mining company Severstal, both have yachts moored in Liguria. The former owns the ‘Lena’ in Sanremo and the latter the ‘Lady M’ in Imperia. They are worth dlrs 50 million and dlrs 65 million respectively. Also in Liguria are Vladimir Potanin's ‘Barbara’ and Sulejman Kerimov's ‘Ice,’ while in Trieste is ’Sailing Yacht A,’ owned by Andrey Melnichenko.

 All the yacht owners are extremely wealthy entrepreneurs close to Putin. Timchenko is the sixth richest man in Russia according to Forbes, and has apparently been friends with the Russian president for some 30 years, while Mordashov’s family is considered the richest in his country. Potanin is the president of Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest producer of high quality nickel, and Kerimov is the owner of the Polyus mining company and one of Putin's closest oligarchs. Melnichenko is the main shareholder of EuroChem Group and SUEK. His yacht alone is worth dlrs 450 million.

 There have been no reports yet of Italian law enforcement agencies confiscating any of the yachts.

 As reported by La Stampa and Il Corriere della Sera, Vladimir Putin himself, two weeks before invading Ukraine, moved his 80-metre-long ‘Grateful’ from the German port of Hamburg to that of Kaliningrad.

 Roman Abramovich may be forced to move his 140-metre-long ‘My Solaris,’ currently stationed in Barcelona. His other boat, ‘Eclipse,’ is moored in the Caribbean.

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