Superyacht Suspected to Be Owned by Putin Spotted After 4 Years Off Danish Coast

▲ Russian President Vladimir Putin

A luxury superyacht believed to be owned by Russian President Vladimir Putin has been spotted on radar for the first time in four years, Danish public broadcaster DR reported on June 30 (local time).

According to data from the vessel tracking site MarineTraffic, the yacht, named Graceful, sailed along the northern coast of Denmark on June 29.

DR reported that the yacht had been escorted by two Russian warships since the morning of June 28, and that the Danish Navy and the German Coast Guard took turns monitoring the vessel.

In relation to this, the Danish military told DR, "The military routinely monitors ships passing through Danish straits and territorial waters, including foreign government vessels, using dedicated surveillance assets."

However, MarineTraffic showed that the Graceful stopped transmitting its location signal as of the evening of June 29.

Meanwhile, the 82-meter-long yacht had been difficult to identify since August 30, 2022, six months after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as it had turned off its AIS transponder, which transmits location information.

Nevertheless, the yacht has reportedly been sighted occasionally in St. Petersburg and other areas of the Baltic Sea.

Western media outlets, including the U.S. business magazine Forbes, have estimated the value of the Graceful at approximately 100 million euros (about 175 billion won) and have reported that the vessel is linked to Putin.

The Graceful departed in a hurry from the port of Hamburg, Germany, where it was undergoing maintenance, on February 7, 2022—just before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine—to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, fueling speculation that it was attempting to evade Western sanctions.

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