Russian President Vladimir Putin looks on during a boat trip with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko off the Black Sea coast, Russia May 29, 2021
Sputnik/Sergei Ilyin/Kremlin via REUTERS
A Russian military plant built Vladimir Putin a 71-meter superyacht, according to a new report.The report was written by the Dossier Center, a Russian opposition group funded by an exiled oligarch.Putin’s rumored mistress often uses the yacht on vacation, according to the report.
Vladimir Putin’s newest known superyacht is 71 meters long, cost an estimated $50 million to build, and can carry up to 28 people, according to a new report from Russian opposition group the Dossier Center.
The vessel, called the Victoria, is based in Sochi but in October docked at a Turkish port near Istanbul for repairs, according to ship tracking data cited in the report. Construction on the yacht began in 2005 at a Russian military facility that typically produces nuclear submarines, according to the report, citing unnamed sources close to Putin.
The Dossier Center, an investigative outlet funded by exiled petroleum oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky – by some estimates, once the richest man in Russia – last month revealed that Russia had accidentally doxed its own spies by uploading their addresses onto a public city hall website.
We found the secret yacht of Vladimir Putin docked at a naval shipyard of a NATO (!) country.
How is this possible and what does it tell us about the character of his regime?
🧵 Read on to find out (and see pictures) – 1/18 pic.twitter.com/RhIzjmFbz3
— Mikhail Khodorkovsky (@khodorkovsky_en) November 22, 2023
Officially, Putin takes a salary of about $140,000 a year and lives in a small Moscow apartment – but extensive reporting shows the dictator almost certainly controls numerous estates and a small flotilla of luxury yachts. While there’s no official estimate of his net worth, observers have pegged it in the tens of billions of dollars.
After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, authorities seized a $700 million superyacht linked to Putin with six floors, two helipads, a swimming pool, a beauty salon, and gold-plated bathrooms.
Victoria is nowhere near as grand. It has just two master cabins, according to the Dossier Center’s report. But it also has the distinction of being linked to former Russian gymnast Alina Kabaeva, rumored to be Putin’s mistress and the father of his children.
Given how it looks like from inside – who wouldn’t be tempted?
15/18 pic.twitter.com/pCCQ6YLqKd
— Mikhail Khodorkovsky (@khodorkovsky_en) November 22, 2023
Kabaeva’s friend, another Russian gymnast and the choreography director of a gymnastics festival Kabaeva organizes, posted a photo of herself on social media with the yacht in the background. And an anonymous source told The Dossier Center that Kabaeva often vacations on the Victoria.
Spokespeople for the Russian president and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.