Thread by @pevchikh

Ok, guys, we have a problem. Putin’s secret $700m yacht is about to escape the sanctions by simply taking off from Italy. It’s a matter of days now. The Italian authorities are doing nothing to stop it. So we should.

The Scheherezade superyacht was floated out this Tuesday. After some final checks, it will be ready to sail away to Turkey, Maldives or wherever the Russian oligarchs are now hiding their yachts from being arrested.

The New York Times writes that the Italian authorities have not completed their investigation into the ownership of this yacht, so they cannot arrest it. Despite the overwhelming evidence that the yacht belongs to Putin.
nytimes.com/2022/05/04/wor…

I am particularly concerned about this. The Italian authorities told @FinancialTimes that they were in touch with us, the Anti-Corruption Foundation. But they weren’t. We haven’t received a single email or phone call from them. They haven’t requested any evidence from us.

We filed a formal complaint on this matter on 23 March 2022. Have we received any response? Nope. Nothing. Niente. It seems to me that they are really unwilling to act.

There is not much to investigate here. The U.S. authorities believe that this yacht is Putin’s. The crew members say it’s Putin’s. We have established that the Scheherezade crew is almost fully composed of Putin’s personal staff.

By “staff” I mean military personnel from the Federal Protective Service, whose only job is to manage presidential protocol. Their job is to follow Putin everywhere. So they went to Italy.

And you know what the Italians claim? That the yacht belongs to oligarch Eduard Khudainatov. I mean yeah, sure. A dozen of state employees working at the Federal Protective Service simply decided to take care of some oligarch as well. WHY NOT.

The yacht crew (different sources spoke to us and the NYT independently), must have confused this gentleman with Mr. Putin. It’s so hard to tell them apart, after all.

You know what this reminds me of? This recent @WSJ article about the U.S. authorities not imposing sanctions on Putin’s mistress Alina Kabaeva because it’s ‘too confrontational’.
wsj.com/articles/u-s-w…

What a brilliant logic, right? They don't want to upset Putin to avoid escalation. But what more could Putin do? Bomb and eradicate a country in the middle of Europe? Start a genocide? Mass rapes? Threaten to nuke the whole world? He is already doing that, hello!

Here is a simple solution to prevent Putin’s precious Scheherezade from sailing away this week. Italy must sanction Khudainatov (or whoever is the yacht’s owner on paper) right now. Today. So the yacht stays in the EU instead of sailing away to some exotic islands.

We have proved beyond reasonable doubt that this yacht belongs to Putin. It’s $700 million (maybe more) ready to be arrested and seized. And I am asking the Italian financial police not to embarrass itself any further and just do it.

If you’re in Italy right now, feel free to pay a visit to the Scheherezade. It’s right there at the dock and apparently it doesn’t have an owner. Exact coordinates attached for your convenience. Hurry up, it might be gone tomorrow.
goo.gl/maps/2gYgwzjGT…