Russian oligarchs hide their yachts in St. Petersburg

Russian oligarchs led by Vladimir Putin have created moorings near St. Petersburg to protect their superyachts.

Specialist H.I. Sutton and other OSINT specialists discovered on satellite images near St. Petersburg new berths where yachts are moored, reports Gospodarka Morska.

The special facility was built quite quickly – the 2020 photo shows abandoned piers, while the 2022 footage shows modernized infrastructure with parking lots. One of the yachts can also be seen in one of the pictures.

The pier, which was previously used by merchant ships, was restored in early 2022, immediately after the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Specialists believe that the facility created in Lomonosov should become a haven for superyachts of Russian oligarchs led by President Vladimir Putin.

Reference: Lomonosov is a city located 40 km west of St. Petersburg, a municipal entity within the Petrodvorets District.

Google Earth satellite images show a yacht about 55 meters long moored near the pier. The latest pictures of this location show Putin’s 82-meter yacht Graceful, also known as the Orca. The yacht was supposed to leave Kaliningrad in September 2022, then head north — it was seen off the coast of Estonia in late September. Sutton says the ship is currently based in Lomonosov, although he notes that the latest Sentinel-2 photos were taken during heavy cloud cover.

The choice of the harbor in Lomonosov by the oligarchs to shelter their yachts is no accident. Very close by, in the city of Kronstadt, is the base of the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Federation.