By John Pickard
It would be hard to find a sharper contrast between the harrowing humanitarian crisis faced by the population of Ukraine and the luxury lifestyle of the world’s billionaires, not least those in Eastern Europe, who built their fortunes by the theft of state assets. Some of them, at least the Russian variety, are now desperately trying to avoid Western sanctions.
There seems to have been more tonnage in yachts seized than there is in the Royal Navy, and, if Reuters reports are to be believed, fleets of Russian yachts are desperately fleeing to the Maldives because it has no extradition treaty with the USA or Europe.
Only last year, we carried an article about the boom in luxury superyachts. In the first half of 2021 alone, according to the Financial Times, 344 superyachts (those bigger than a certain size) were sold on the market. There are literally thousands of them floating about, monuments to the obscene wealth of a tiny proportion of the world’s population, and many hundreds of them are Russian-owned, although often registered elsewhere for tax purposes.
According to an article in the Russian opposition newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, “Finnish customs has detained 21 yachts that may belong to Russian oligarchs or their companies that fell under EU sanctions”. Novaya Gazeta notes that the yachts “may” belong to Russian oligarchs because, like all the gazillionaires on the planet, they like to hide their wealth under a thick coat of shell companies and tax havens, in case the world (ie the workers) see it in too sharp a focus. Many of them, therefore, are registered around the globe.
True ownership of yachts is often hidden
The Finnish news website Helsingin Sanomat, also reported that many of the yachts that had been seized had been in winter storage, including one used by former Russian Prime Minister and President, Dmitry Medvedev. The company in charge of the storage noted that many owners were not likely to be Russian, although their true ownership was not necessarily known. “None of these ships are Russian in themselves, but are registered in the islands of Guernsey or Jersey, for example. The officers of the ships are also usually non-Russian…It’s hard to interpret whether the boats are Russian because they are registered around the globe. We can’t say who ultimately owns the boat. Official papers do not necessarily read the names of the persons…”
Significantly, the Helsingen Sanomat reporter noted that “The British Isles are known as tax havens”.
Gibraltar too, according to Novaya Gazeta, detained a Maltese-flagged yacht which is “associated” with billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky. “Earlier Spain detained a 135-meter yacht…linked to Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, who is on the EU, US and UK sanctions list”. On March 3, the French Economy and Finance Minister announced the confiscation of another yacht associated with the same person. On the same day, German authorities in Hamburg confiscated the 156-metre yacht of Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov.
Peter Mandelson, friend of Keir Starmer…and Oleg Deripaska
Also in early March, Italian police announced the seized a yacht of the Russian oligarch Gennady Timchenko, an impressive ship estimated to be worth about €50mn. As we have already reported, the robber-baron par excellence, Roman Abramovich has also had his yacht seized.
We should not forget the association of the Labour Party right wing with Russian yachts. It was reported in 2008 that Peter Mandelson, one-time EU Trade Commissioner (appointed by Tony Blair), but now a key adviser to Keir Starmer, had holidayed that Summer on the yacht of Russian billionaire, Oleg Deripaska, along with George Osborne, later Tory Chancellor.
Having been invited by Gordon Brown into the Cabinet as Business Secretary, the Guardian reported, “the Sunday Times claimed Mandelson gave trade concessions worth up to £50m a year to Russia’s richest man after being entertained by him on his superyacht“. Deripaska is now one of a handful of Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the UK government, Boris Johnson having carefully avoided Ukrainian oligarchs and those nice Russians who give money to the Tory Party. We wait for a formal inquiry into links between Peter Mandelson’s position as Business Secretary and Deripaska benefitting from ‘trade concessions’.
As for the yachts, it is a nice idea to see them taken out of the grubby hands of billionaires, but it poses two questions. Firstly, why should it only be the Russian kleptocracy that suffers, and not, say, Ukrainian, US or European oligarchs? And secondly, what should be done with them? It wouldn’t be a bad idea for Labour to put forward a plan for their conversion into holiday homes for workers, or into hospital/relief ships for areas afflicted by natural disasters. Answers on a post-card.
