The richest oligarch in the Russian Federation, who has already been photographed playing ice hockey with Vladimir Putin, has joined the list of those who are moving – in fact, sailing – their valuable assets to Dubai to evade sanctions.
Vladimir Potanin, who runs the world’s largest nickel-palladium refiner, may not have been subject to sanctions from the United States and Europe, because such sanctions could affect metal markets and break supply chains, according to analysts.
As the largest shareholder in the Nornickel miner, Potanin had a personal fortune of $30.6 billion before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to Forbes magazine.
But like a growing number of blacklisted Russian oligarchs, he appears to have taken precautions to move his $300 million luxury yacht to the safe haven of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, which is allied with the United States.
It is called Nirvana, it is 88 meters long and is equipped with glass elevators, a gym, a Jacuzzi and a cinema room equipped with a 3D projection and animal groomers for exotic reptiles. Nirvana stands out in the harbor full of floating and sparkling mansions.
Built in the Netherlands, with a dark blue hull, it was docked Tuesday, displaying the Cayman Islands flag, when AP reporters spotted it at Port Rashid, glimpsing another superyacht, Madame Joe, worth $156 million owned by Russian MP Andrei Skoch.
The arrival of luxury Russian ships in Dubai has become a great symbol of the UAE’s reluctance to oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the tightening of sanctions against the Russian Federation.
The United Arab Emirates is part of a contracting list of countries where Russians can fly directly. This Middle Eastern financial hub has become a hotspot for wealthy Russians, in part because of its reputation for welcoming money from everywhere, both legitimate and darker.
“They didn’t even try to hide the fact that they were accepting the oligarchy themselves and their yachts,” said Julia Friedlander, former senior policy adviser for Europe in the US Treasury Department’s Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Division. When it comes to taking sides in a conflict, it is not in your political interest to do so. They want to keep the money coming from everywhere.”
The UAE’s position has raised tensions with the United States, which wants its Gulf ally to help it fight Russian evasion of sanctions.
Deputy US Treasury Secretary Wally Ademo, one of the main US coordinators of sanctions enforcement strategy, traveled to the UAE last week to voice the Joe Biden administration’s concerns about Russian financial flows and to request more monitoring.
However, some notable oligarchs have escaped the blacklists due to their strategic assets.
Despite being subject to Australian and Canadian sanctions, Potanin has defied all of these measures, which is attributed to his reputation as a “king in the nickel”.
“We are facing severe shortages of important minerals and we don’t know where these supply chains are going. So we have to ask whether punishing them would make matters worse? These are serious considerations,” Friedlander said.
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