WASHINGTON — The US Treasury Department announced a new round of sanctions targeting what it said were yachts linked to President Vladimir Putin as well as allies of the Russian leader, in the latest set of penalties over the war in Ukraine.
Billionaire Alexey Mordashov, the majority owner of Severstal PJSC, Russia’s fourth-biggest steelmaker, was also hit with State Department sanctions, Treasury said.
The Russian-flagged yacht Graceful and the Olympia, which flies a Cayman Islands flag, were among the vessels identified in the latest tranche of sanctions, according to a Treasury statement on Thursday. Putin and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko traveled together on one of the ships on the Black Sea in 2021, Treasury said.
The sanctions, which were aimed at a number of other ships, planes and individuals as well, continue to focus on Russia’s elites in a bid to pressure Putin to rethink his war in Ukraine. With the conflict into its fourth month, however, such moves appear to have had little influence on the Russian leader.
“Russia’s elites, up to and including President Putin, rely on complex support networks to hide, move, and maintain their wealth and luxury assets,” Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement. “We will continue to enforce our sanctions and expose the corrupt systems by which President Putin and his elites enrich themselves.
Among other U.S. targets announced on Thursday were yacht brokerage Imperial Yachts SARL, based in Monaco, as well as Sergei Roldugin, who Treasury said is a “close friend and part of a system that manages President Putin’s offshore wealth.” Roldugin, who has been sanctioned by several other nations, is also a godfather to one of Putin’s daughters, according to the statement.
In an emailed statement, Imperial Yachts rejected the Treasury Department’s accusations and said it would pursue “all available legal remedies to resolve this matter promptly.”
“Imperial Yachts conducts all its businesses in full compliance with laws and regulations in all jurisdictions in which we operate,” according to the statement. “We are not involved in our clients’ financial affairs.”
Among officials in Putin’s government, Minister of Transport Vitaly Savelyev was sanctioned after already facing penalties from the European Union and U.K.
