The radar tracks are suspended in the middle of the sea. The floating fortresses, with the Russian flag lowered, plow the waters between France and Corsica with the nocturnal caution of those who want to go unnoticed. That unbridled luxury that runs along the Tyrrhenian Sea has no declared goal. The only warning is the timing, too early to spend the winter in the bay of the Russians, in the heart of the Costa Smeralda. Here, close to the hermitage of the Prince, the calm is flat, as if summer were still at its dawn, despite the fact that the calorimeter has already broken through the wall of thirty degrees. In reality, in the lush hairpin bends between Marinella and Portisco it is still time for campers and wayfaring motorcyclists.
Advance of high edge
Too early for that one thousand and one nights month, between late July and late August, made up of yachts, champagne and high-flying. For some time now, forecasts have no longer looked at temperatures, but rather follow health and now war weather. It does not take a tourism strategist to imagine that we will see very little of the Russians, their millionaire accounts, their luxury villas this summer. Sanctions, tensions, bans and "russophobia" do not encourage the race to the Putin's hermitage in Sardinia. Those who look out even for a moment in those expanses of blue of the Costa Smeralda do not go unnoticed. The ports, those far from the ferries of the White Island, are desolately empty or almost. Porto Cervo and Porto Rotondo await a full house from next month, the docks are bare without the giants of the sea, those who make you run to scrutinize the unknown flag of a smaller tax haven than Tavolara, the property and the stratospheric figure of value of the villa with stern and bow.
The night of the "Russians"
Yet in the last few hours, or rather in the last few nights, the Costa Smeralda radars have marked presences as unexpected as they are secret. The only ones to register the movements are the international circuits of financial investigation, those that are monitoring the movements of capital, yachts and jets of the entire Putin establishment around the world. Under control are the well-known names, from Usmanov to Ibraimovich, from Aven to Deripaska, but there are also those who are apparently second ranks of the oligarchic state outside the borders of Moscow. And it is for this reason that two yachts attributable to leading men of Russian financial takeovers, all linked to oil and technological investments, could not escape satellite control. All landing craft with Russian owners, encrypted, however, in the residences of London and Luxembourg. In this tourist hermitage of Sardinia, a bit Arab and a bit Russian, the first to anchor in the heart of the Marinella bay is a yacht of which only the flag is known, needless to say of the Caiman Islands, a tax haven .
The first in Marinella
The well-informed report the boat linked to the Russian circuit near the coasts of Sardinia. The arrival is marked at 1.48 in the morning. Ownership of the luxury boater throughout the night is uncertain. The first monitoring data of the international circuit on sanctions attribute it to none other than the President of Lukoil, Vagit Alekperov. It is only at dawn that the name of the "boat" is revealed, placed between the Sassi beach and that of Shirley Bassey, that of James Bond. The first Russian dock in the Sardinian sea since the outbreak of Putin's invasion of Ukraine is the “Belongers”, a yacht not as imposing as Alisher Usmanov's “Dilbar”, but with fifty meters of luxury and highly respectable IT sophistication.
The Putin's man
The owner is Alexei Reznikovich, a name covered by a UK passport, but with an all-Russian history, from his birth in Moscow to his meeting with one of the ten richest men in Russia, Mikhail Maratovich Fridman, the co-founder along with Peter Aven of one of the largest Russian banks, Alfa Bank. A man to whom Fridman, patrimony of 16 billion dollars, fully entered into the Ukraine 2022 sanctions, has entrusted the most important and delicate roles up to the leadership of the Russian-European giant "LetterOne", committed on all the most profitable fronts of the business in the West. The arrival of the "Belongers" and the choice of mooring in the harbor, in front of Porto Rotondo, confirm the choice of confidentiality for passengers on board who in the last few hours have "dared" to move only for a foray into the most American island of all, that of Santo Stefano.
The landing in Portisco
On the northern front, in the hermitage of Portisco, a Russian bay par excellence with 105 million euro real estate already seized from the oligarch Alexey Mordashov, in the night between the end of May and the beginning of June, the yacht moored “Sibelle”, a gigantic iron silhouette owned by Alexander Zhukov, a Russian in all respects, but with an English pass. Residences scattered between Sardinia, London and Moscow. His yacht, another 50 meters of luxury, sways between the secluded Portisco and Cala di Volpe. He, rich as an oligarch, is, however, less rich than his son-in-law, Roman Abramovich, a fortune that for him is close to nine billion dollars. Zhuchov, not to be confused with Putin's former deputy, same name and surname, has replenished his safes with oil and an endless chain of offshore companies that ended up in the great scandal of the Panama Papers.
The emir remains on the ground
Based in London, but very solid business between Russia and Ukraine. Apparently his yacht was not lucky in mooring in the Gallura port. He was assigned as neighbor of the bollard none other than the gigantic "Sarafsa", the 82-meter-long super yacht that until a few days ago was owned by Prince Fahad Bin Sultan, governor of the province of Tabuk in Saudi Arabia. the rich cry, or rather do not pay off their debts. The most important bank in heavily armored Switzerland has set its sights on the Saudi tycoon accused of not having repaid millions of interest and loans he has contracted to refinance his gigantic English villa and his superyacht. Credit Suisse Group did not tell him and filed a lawsuit for the stratospheric sum of $ 78 million equal to the interest and loans that the emir had contracted to finance his superyacht and the Surrey mansion.
Salpa Credit Suisse
The gigantic floating hermitage, flag of the Cayman Islands, royal interiors like few others, now moored in Portisco, so immense that the one moored alongside the Russian oligarch in London sauce, according to documents filed in the Court of London, is valid. 58 million euros, just enough to repay part of the debt. Said and done, as soon as the "pachyderm of the seas" was moored in Sardinia, according to confidential sources, it changed ownership. For a few days now, Credit Suisse has been paying the emir's debts directly, including those left lying around in Sardinia.
Usmanov's shadow
Alisher Usmanov, the oligarch considered among the closest to the Russian Tsar Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, seems to have always honored him. However, he too will have to do without the giant of Porto Cervo, that super “Dilbar”, which has been mooring for years in the heart of the most coveted bay. The Russian billionaire has no peace. In recent days, with an urgent appeal, which remained locked in the offices of the European High Court, Usmanov appealed to the decision of the European Union: return the “Dilbar” to me. Summer is just beginning. And he, this year, will not be there.
