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Scheherazade Charter Yacht

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This Yacht is not for Charter*

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Scheherazade

  • Amenities & Toys

SCHEHERAZADE yacht NOT for charter*

142m  /  465'11 | lurssen | 2020 / 2024.

Owner & Guests

  • Previous Yacht

Special Features:

  • Guest elevator
  • Extensive health and beauty center, including spa, beach club and beauty salon
  • Recent refit in 2024
  • State-of-the-art cinema
  • DNV (Det Norske Veritas) classification

The 142m/465'11" motor yacht 'Scheherazade' was built by Lurssen in Germany at their Vegesack shipyard and she was delivered to her owner in June 2020. This luxury vessel's exterior design is the work of Espen Oeino and she was last refitted in 2024.

Guest Accommodation

Scheherazade has been designed to comfortably accommodate up to 18 guests in 9 suites. She is also capable of carrying up to 40 crew onboard to ensure a relaxed luxury yacht experience.

Onboard Comfort & Entertainment

Her features include a beauty salon, movie theatre, spa, elevator, underwater lights, beach club, gym and air conditioning.

Range & Performance

Scheherazade is built with a steel hull and aluminium superstructure, with teak decks. Powered by twin diesel MTU (20V 1163 M84) 20-cylinder 8,837hp engines running at 1280rpm, she comfortably cruises at 15 knots, reaches a maximum speed of 20 knots. Scheherazade features at-anchor stabilizers providing exceptional comfort levels. Her water tanks store around 110,000 Litres of fresh water. She was built to DNV (Det Norske Veritas) classification society rules.

*Charter Scheherazade Motor Yacht

Motor yacht Scheherazade is currently not believed to be available for private Charter. To view similar yachts for charter , or contact your Yacht Charter Broker for information about renting a luxury charter yacht.

Scheherazade Yacht Owner, Captain or marketing company

'Yacht Charter Fleet' is a free information service, if your yacht is available for charter please contact us with details and photos and we will update our records.

Scheherazade Photos

Scheherazade Yacht

Scheherazade Awards & Nominations

  • World Yachts Trophies 2020 Yacht of the Year Nomination

NOTE to U.S. Customs & Border Protection

Specification

M/Y Scheherazade

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$700mn superyacht tied to Putin is being refitted while impounded

The superyacht Scheherazade is moored in the port at Marina di Carrara on March 23, 2022 in Carrara, Italy

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Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli in Marina di Carrara and Henry Foy in Brussels

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

It has been 15 months since Italy impounded the Scheherazade, a $700mn superyacht linked to Vladimir Putin.

But the time the yacht has spent sitting in the Tuscan port of Marina di Carrara has not been wasted: Italy has allowed its unnamed, but sanctioned, owner to pay not just for its staff and maintenance, but also for it to be refitted.

The 140 metre-long yacht, which is only four years old and boasts 22 guest cabins with gold-plated bathrooms, two helicopter decks and a spa, is being refurbished by the Milan-listed Italian Sea Group.

The company confirmed that a “refit” of the ship continued after the asset was frozen by authorities, and that the yacht’s owner has been paying for the works and for maintenance, but declined to give further details, including the identity of the owner.

The Agenzia del Demanio, which manages seized assets, confirmed it had agreed, along with the finance ministry, to allow the ship’s owner to pay for the “maintenance works”, but declined to go into further detail because “information about frozen assets is classified”.

Italy has never publicly identified the yacht’s owner, although at the time it was seized it said there was “evidence of meaningful economic and business connections with prominent elements of the Russian government subject to EU sanctions”.

According to people with knowledge of the situation in Rome and Brussels the owner is Eduard Khudainatov, the former chief executive of the Russian state oil company Rosneft who was sanctioned by the EU in June 2022.

A Bloomberg report last year said US officials had alleged in court filings that Khudainatov was the “straw owner” of two yachts, including the Scheherazade, on behalf of Putin. The Financial Times traced the boat’s ownership to a Marshall Islands-based entity called Beilor Asset Limited.

Meanwhile researchers working for the jailed Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny have also alleged that the Scheherazade’s real owner is the Russian president, because a number of its crew were members of the Federal Protection Service, responsible for Putin’s security. The Kremlin denied the allegations at the time. The staff on board the yacht was subsequently replaced.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response to a question from the Financial Times: “All rumors about this are unfounded.”

A European Commission spokesperson said that “members states are responsible for implementing sanctions,” and that asset freezes do not affect the ownership of the assets.

When asked about the payment scheme for the Scheherazade’s upkeep, the spokesperson said that “maintenance costs of frozen assets can be paid by the designated person” under a “standard derogation”.

Public authorities in the relevant member state can also pay the maintenance costs given the “risk that the designated person will not be willing to . . . or that the designated person will be denying beneficial ownership of the asset,” the spokesperson added.

Italy and the European Commission did not confirm who the “designated person” is for the Scheherazade.

The EU has imposed sanctions on almost 1,900 Russian individuals and entities since Moscow’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, freezing their assets and banning them from travelling around the bloc. The assets are frozen, rather than seized, and would be returned if sanctions are lifted.

According to a list of Russian assets seized in Italy seen by the FT, the Scheherazade is the only one whose owner is not specified. The vessel is merely described as: “superyacht Scheherazade sailing under the Cayman Islands flag with a value of around €650mn.”

Additional reporting by Stefania Palma in Washington

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Video: 12th largest yacht in world 140m Lürssen Scheherazade captured in new footage

The 12th largest yacht in the world, the 140 metre Lürssen yacht named  Scheherazade , has been captured underway in new never-before-seen footage. 

Video courtesy of Carlo Demicheli | @boatfromtheworld

It comes after the superyacht, which was previously known as  Project Lightning , first hit the water in July 2019, promptly taking its place among the largest 25 superyachts in the world. 

Scheherazade 's Espen Øino-designed exterior features a four-deck aluminium superstructure, two large helipads – one at the bow and one on the upper deck – plus a prominent beach club aft.

With the owner known to be a Middle-Eastern billionaire, this yacht is designed with warmer climates in mind and has relatively little exterior space for a yacht of this size.

There is limited covered deck space at the aft end of the main and upper decks, but it is well enclosed by glass sides for cooling. Even the sundeck is completely shaded by a hardtop, which all helps to give the yacht a huge 10,167 GT internal volume.

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The Russia sanctions are growing, seemingly by the hundreds, every day. And much of the world is watching with glee as oligarchs’ luxuries are being hunted down by international governments. If we’ve learned anything from movies like The Wolf of Wall Street, which is based on a true story, it’s that some of the world’s wealthiest enjoy flaunting their money. Not only do billionaires often spend their money on toys like European sports cars and diamond-encrusted watches, but they also want the world to know to whom these extremely rare possessions belong. 

After all, Jeff Bezos has been accumulating quite a bit of press as he works on dismantling a historic bridge in Rotterdam to sail his $500 million yacht onto the open sea. But some billionaires play their cards a bit closer to the chest. Case in point: the owner of a 459-foot superyacht docked in a Tuscan port. No one, not even the Italian police, can identify who the enormous vessel belongs to, which leads the world to believe it may be someone tied to one of the world’s most currently despised leaders: Vladimir Putin.

Image may contain Transportation Vehicle Boat and Yacht

Scheherazade , which costs an estimated $700 million, boasts not one but two helicopter decks. 

Few believe that the floating mansion actually belongs to the Russian president—whose recent invasion of Ukraine is earning more sanctions than he, his country, and his billionaire friends thought imaginable—but many are more certain that it belongs to someone with ties to the top of the Russian government.

Since the devastating fate of Ukraine started to unfold, the United States, along with the UK and the European Union, have come together to track down the luxuries belonging to Putin’s friends, who are part of a massively growing list of billionaires facing punishing sanctions. That’s why this boat, one of the world’s largest and costliest, is such a point of interest.

International governments have been going after the luxurious belongings of Russian oligarchs since Putin and his government started getting slapped with sanctions two weeks ago, so assuming the yacht hiding out in Italy is one of Putin’s friend’s, things aren’t looking so good. However, no one can confirm just yet. The ship’s British captain, Guy Bennett-Pearce, promised that Putin had never been on the boat and that it didn’t belong to him, but he didn’t confirm whether or not the yacht belonged to a Russian national.

Image may contain Tie Accessories Accessory Suit Coat Clothing Overcoat Apparel Human Person Jacket and Blazer

Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Considering all of the amenities on the boat, dubbed Scheherazade , it’s not exactly an unfair guess to assume the owner is a Russian oligarch. Scheherazade , which costs an estimated $700 million, boasts not one but two helicopter decks, an indoor swimming pool with a retractable cover that transforms the pool into a dance floor, a fully equipped gym, and bathrooms complete with gold-plated fixtures. That’s a lot of sparkle even for the level of wealth associated with a purchase this big. However, the glamour isn’t the unusual part; the degree of intentional secrecy is.

The superyacht community does entertain a level of confidentiality—mostly for security purposes—but the Scheherazade is kept under so many wraps that it makes people believe something dubious must be going on when it comes to the owner’s identity. For instance, all of the contractors and crew members signed nondisclosure agreements, there’s a custom cover to hide the boat’s nameplate, and when Scheherazade arrived at the port, workers built a metal structure on the pier to keep passersby from seeing the yacht.

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The 459-foot superyacht is currently docked in a Tuscan port.

This yacht, however, isn’t the only one catching people’s attention as of late. The world’s second-biggest yacht, called Eclipse , is owned by Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire who owns the British soccer club, Chelsea. On Thursday, March 10, the UK government sanctioned Abramovich's assets.

As for Scheherazade , that mystery is still being investigated, and until the feds can figure out who the not-so-proud owner is, the behemoth on water will remain where it is, shrouded in a cloak of well-orchestrated secrecy.

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Italy seizes billion-dollar superyacht Scheherazade, reportedly linked to the Russian government

A large superyacht docked in a harbour near smaller boats and shipping containers. Mountainous terrain in the far background.

The Italian government says it has seized a luxury yacht worth almost a billion dollars, which is reportedly linked to the Russian government.

Key points:

  • The 140-metre superyacht has been rumoured to have links to Russia's President, but its actual owner isn't publicly known
  • Italian authorities have seized the vessel, which they say is linked to "prominent elements of the Russian government"
  • Italy has asked the EU to introduce sanctions against the yacht's true owner

The 140-metre, six-deck Scheherazade had been undergoing repairs in the Italian port of Marina di Carrara since September, but recent activity at the dockside suggested the crew might be preparing to put the vessel to sea.

Italy's Finance Minister had adopted a decree to stop the superyacht from sailing away from the Tuscan port earlier this week, after an investigation of the vessel linked it to "prominent elements of the Russian government".

Police boarded the yacht late on Friday to execute the seizure order, the Italian government said.

The vessel has previously been linked by some media organisations to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

While Italy's finance ministry has not named an owner, a source with direct knowledge of the investigation into the vessel told the Reuters news agency that Italian police believed the owner was Eduard Khudainatov, the former chief of Russian energy giant Rosneft, who is not currently a target of European Union sanctions.

Italy's finance ministry said the probe carried out by the country's financial police corps found "significant economic business links of the beneficial owner" of the Scheherazade as well to other subjects included in a list issued in 2014 as part of EU measures prompted by Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

The ministry said the owner was not on any sanctions lists drawn up by Brussels following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, it said Rome had asked the EU to rectify this and had ordered the boat be seized pending a decision.

Based on the Italian investigation, minister Daniele Franco adopted a "freezing decree'' regarding the yacht, which flies the flag of the Cayman Islands and which had "long been under the attention of the authorities", a statement said.

It comes after the superyacht Amadea — believed to belong to sanctioned Russian oligarch Sulieman Kerimov — was  seized by Fijian authorities and put in the custody of the United States  earlier this week.

A few weeks after Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a speech to Italian politicians, urged Italy to continue freezing the assets of Russian oligarchs and officials. He cited the Scheherazade by name.

The luxury vessel has two helicopter pads and can host up to 18 guests and 40 crew.

Its owner has never been publicly identified, but there have been rumours that it belongs to Mr Putin or a member of his inner circle.

An organisation set up by imprisoned Putin critic Alexei Navalny released a report in March saying it had evidence that the boat belonged to Mr Putin.

It said many of its crew were drawn from Russia's Federal Protective Service (FSO), which is tasked with protecting the Russian President.

The Kremlin did not respond at the time to a request for comment on whether Mr Putin was the owner or whether members of the FSO were crew members.

Italy has sequestered villas and yachts from wealthy Russians, who regularly came to the country on holiday and had bought property in many prestigious locations.

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Scheherazade: The £500m superyacht in Tuscan port ‘linked to Putin’

ITALY-UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CONFLICT

The stunning Tuscan port of Marina di Carrara has long been the parking spot of choice for the global elite’s superyachts but there is one vessel that stands out leaving all others in its shade.

The Scheherazade, said to be worth $700m (£528m), complete with two helipads a spa and a swimming pool that can transform into a dancefloor, is under investigation by Italian authorities for potential links to sanctioned Russians - with speculation mounting it could belong to President Putin himself.

The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky used an address in Italian Parliament on Tuesday to namecheck the Scheherazade and urged politicians to seize the yacht and freeze the assets of sanctioned Russians.

ITALY-UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CONFLICT

“Don’t be a resort for murderers,” he begged. “Lock all their real estate, accounts and yachts – from the Scheherazade to the smallest ones.”

The Scheherazade contains gold plated toilets and bathroom fittings, a cryotherapy chamber in the spa and six-deck floors - described as being like two apartment blocks stacked on top of each other.

On the upper deck, as former deckhands tol d jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny ’s team, there is a giant living room, dining room, two VIP cabins and a mechanical piano, which plays itself.

The tune is said to be from a famous 2014 song titled ‘Vladimir Putin is a Fine Fellow’.

It flies under the flag of the Cayman Islands, according to the tracking service Marine Traffic , and has been moored in Marina di Carrara since early September after arriving from Montenegro across the Mediterranean.

But even the superyacht ’s British captain Guy Bennett-Pearce’s denials that Putin has anything to do with the luxury vessel, one of the most expensive of its kind in the world, hasn’t dampened down speculation amongst locals and dock workers.

ITALY-UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CONFLICT

He told The New York Times : “I have never seen him. I have never met him.”

Mr Bennett-Pearce told the publication he could not give further details because of a “watertight” non-disclosure agreement but he insisted the owner was not on any sanctions list.

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The team of jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny said in a video on its YouTube channel on March 21 that all crew members, except the captain, are Russian citizens, and many of them are employed by the Federal Protection Service (FSO), the agency responsible for Putin’s personal security.

According to Navalny’s team, the 140-metre long superyacht was made in Germany in 2020.

According to the New York Times, the yacht travelled to the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi twice, once in 2020 and again in 2021. It is known that Putin regularly visits his residence in Sochi.

If the yacht’s connection to Putin is proven, it will be impounded, as Putin is currently under sanctions from the European Union over Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

The name Scheherazade is a girl’s name of Arabic origin meaning “noble lineage“.

Scheherazade - or Sheherazade -is also the name of a legendary Persian queen immortalised as the narrator the One Thousand and One Nights stories that include Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and Aladdin and the Magic Lamp.

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The Scheherazade at the shipyard in Marina di Carrara, Tuscany

Superyacht allegedly linked to Putin blocked from leaving Italian shipyard

Minister says there is evidence that connects the Scheherazade to senior members of the Russian government

  • Russia-Ukraine war – latest updates

The Italian economy minister has signed an order blocking a superyacht allegedly linked to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin , from leaving port.

In a statement on Friday night, the ministry said that Daniele Franco had signed the decree based on evidence that the owner of the Scheherazade, which has been undergoing a refit at a shipyard in Tuscany since September, has “significant economic and business connections” with “prominent elements of the Russian government and with others subject to EU sanctions”.

The statement did not name the owner of the vessel, but said the ministry had asked the EU to place the individual on to the sanctions list. The yacht has been blocked pending the adoption of further restrictive measures.

The order came amid fears that the vessel, said to be worth $700m (£530m), was about to leave the shipyard in Marina di Carrara.

The Scheherazade has been under investigation since March for potential links to sanctioned Russians, including Putin.

A report in the New York Times said that it had been moved out of dry dock and into the water on Tuesday. The newspaper cited a crew member who said it could leave the port imminently.

A spokesperson for the Italian Sea Group, a company that repairs and builds luxury yachts, told the Guardian that the vessel was scheduled to set sail by the middle of June.

Marianna Ferrante, the company’s marketing director, said: “Maintenance work is progressing and there are no scheduled departures anytime soon.”

The company originally said the €6m refit would be completed in early 2023. The yacht is said to be equipped with a spa, swimming pools, two helipads, a wood-burning fireplace and a pool table designed to tilt so as to reduce the impact of the waves.

Finance police in Marina di Carrara boarded the Scheherazade in early March as EU sanctions against Russian oligarchs kicked in over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They seized ownership documents from the yacht’s British captain, Guy Bennett-Pearce. At the time, US officials said they were also investigating whether the yacht belonged to Putin. Activists working with the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny have also claimed Putin is the owner.

A source at the finance police said the investigation was “very complex” owing to a web of company names that could be concealing the real owner.

“As you can imagine, after all this time, it’s not been easy [to identify] an owner, because of all the companies in between,” the source said. “There is no more information we can give, and asking if it belongs to Putin is like a lottery.” The source would not confirm whether or not police were preparing to seize the vessel.

An investigation by La Stampa newspaper in March linked the Scheherazade to Eduard Yurievich Khudainatov, the former president of the Russian state oil firm Rosneft, via a shell company registered in the Marshall Islands. Khudainatov is not on the sanctions list.

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Putin-Linked Superyacht May Elude Sanctions, by Setting Sail

The Italian police are in a race to finish investigating a $700 million vessel thought to be the Russian president’s — before it’s out of their reach.

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By Gaia Pianigiani and Michael Forsythe

  • May 4, 2022

MARINA DI CARRARA, Italy— The Italian police are in a race to finish investigating the ownership of a $700 million superyacht, which U.S. officials say is linked to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, before the vessel is put to sea and able to elude possible sanctions.

They may be running out of time.

After spending months dry-docked in the Tuscan port of Marina di Carrara, the 459-foot vessel, called the Scheherazade, was put into the water again on Tuesday. Crew members milled about topside as water slowly filled the dry dock. The British captain, who had previously spoken to reporters, did not respond to questions.

A former crew member said that the ship could be ready to sail immediately, but that first it was likely to undergo sea trials to check its equipment — common for a ship that has been under repair and, in this case, in port since September.

The Scheherazade has so far avoided the fate of some luxury yachts linked to powerful Russians, which have been seized in the effort by the European Union, Britain and the United States to go after the wealth of oligarchs and officials in Mr. Putin’s inner circle in response to the Ukraine invasion. In March, the Scheherazade’s captain, Guy Bennett-Pearce, said the vessel’s owner — whom he didn’t identify — was not on any sanctions list. The Italian media reported that the owner was Eduard Khudainatov, an oil tycoon not currently under sanctions. He is a longtime associate of Igor Sechin, a close Putin ally and chairman of the Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft, who is believed to be the owner of a superyacht seized in March.

Mr. Khudainatov’s ownership of the Scheherazade could not be independently verified. If indeed he is the owner, it may be only on paper. His name has also come up in the case of another superyacht, The Associated Press earlier reported: the Amadea , which shares an exterior designer, interior designer and builder with the Scheherazade. On Tuesday, Fiji’s highest court gave the United States permission to seize the $325 million Amadea, which has been held in the South Pacific nation since last month. According to an American official, the vessel’s owner is Suleiman A. Kerimov , a billionaire gold magnate from Russia who has been under U.S. sanctions since 2018; defense lawyers claim the true owner is Mr. Khudainatov, The Associated Press reported.

The former Scheherazade crew member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a nondisclosure agreement that workers on the ship signed, had never heard of Mr. Khudainatov and said it was openly discussed onboard that the Scheherazade’s real owner was Mr. Putin. Soon after The Times first wrote about the Scheherazade in early March, U.S. officials said the yacht had ties to Mr. Putin, without offering specifics. A team of journalists working for the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny obtained a list of crew members and found that many of them were employees of the Russian agency that guards Mr. Putin.

A spokeswoman for Italy’s financial police, which has been leading the national and international inquiry into the Scheherazade’s ownership, said that, should the vessel leave before their investigation concluded, there would be nothing that authorities could do to stop it.

Three port workers said that the authorities appeared to be keeping an eye on the yacht, which has been adjacent to a police station and the Coast Guard while in dry dock; a police helicopter makes daily fly-bys, they said. The workers, who were not authorized to speak to the press, asked that their names not be disclosed.

A retired shipyard employee, Roberto Franchi, said that if the Scheherazade “is floating, it can move relatively quickly.”

It isn’t clear where the ship would go, but the movements of Russian-owned superyachts that have successfully dodged American, European Union or British sanctions offer some possibilities. Two vessels that belong to the billionaire Roman Abramovich, who faces British and E.U. sanctions, have been in Turkish waters for weeks. Others have loitered in the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean. The Nord, owned by the billionaire Alexei Mordashov, went much farther afield, arriving at the Russian Pacific port of Vladivostok at the end of March, according to data from Marine Traffic, which tracks vessels.

Those superyachts escaped the fate of the Amadea and a growing list of others, including Sailing Yacht A, owned by the billionaire Andrey Melnichenko and impounded by the Italian police in March; and the Crescent, sister ship of the Scheherazade, impounded in Spain. Reuters, citing a person in the Spanish police, reported that the Crescent was believed to belong to Mr. Sechin.

Here in Marina di Carrara, port workers and other people with access to the shipyard saw a flurry of activity by the Scheherazade’s crew: removing the white plastic screens that protected the decks during the repairs, cleaning the ship, loading supplies. Last week, they said, fuel trucks filled the vessel’s enormous tanks, while crew members carefully moved wrapped cases onboard.

As the sun set on Tuesday, a young couple had their aperitivo drinks at a bar overlooking the shipyard.

“Look, Putin’s yacht is still here,” Massimo Giovi, a 25-year old student, joked. “If that goes, it will change the skyline here.”

Julian Barnes contributed reporting.

Gaia Pianigiani is a reporter based in Italy for The New York Times.  More about Gaia Pianigiani

Michael Forsythe is a reporter on the investigations team. He was previously a correspondent in Hong Kong, covering the intersection of money and politics in China. He has also worked at Bloomberg News and is a United States Navy veteran. More about Michael Forsythe

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As President Vladimir Putin of Russia threatened nuclear escalation if NATO troops entered the conflict in Ukraine, statements by President Emmanuel Macron of France  and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany  exposed how Western allies were struggling to maintain unity.

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Mystery yacht 'scheherazade', believed to be vladimir putin's pleasure boat, docked in tuscany.

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It has been parked for maintenance work at The Italian Sea Group's shipyard for several months.

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$700M Superyacht Belongs to Putin, New Navalny Investigation Claims

Edward Ongweso Jr

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IMAGES

  1. Exclusive: 140m Lurssen superyacht 'Project Lightning' delivered and

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  2. SCHEHERAZADE Yacht • Eduard Khudainatov $700M Superyacht

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  3. SCHEHERAZADE Yacht • Eduard Khudainatov $700M Superyacht

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  5. Yacht Scheherazade • Lurssen • 2020 • Location

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  6. Mega Yacht- „Scheherazade" (140m length) at Lürssen shipyard Bremen-Vegesack

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    The yacht's ownership has been a subject of intrigue and speculation, with Eduard Khudainatov, the former President of Rosneft, currently believed to be the owner. Scheherazade's value is estimated at around $700 million with running costs pegged at $70 million annually.

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  18. Putin-Linked Superyacht May Elude Sanctions, by Setting Sail

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    The yacht, named the Scheherazade—sharing a name with the vizier's eldest daughter in Tales from the Thousand and One Nights—is currently in the Italian port of Marina di Carrara on Italy's ...