An attempt to unlock a Superiaht reveals the ties of an executive director in the Russian defense industry and shows how the Russian elites use complex networks to get sanctions, including Western law companies, an independent Kyiv investigation shows.
The Valerie yacht was confiscated by Spain after the Russian invasion of Profimedia photo
In 2023, lawyers who represented an offshore company went to court to unlock a Superiaht detained in a Spanish port due to its connections with Sergei Cemezov, an associate of Vladimir Putin
The judicial documents studied by Kyiv Independent have shown that the yacht has changed its owner several times, as part of a strategy of bypassing sanctions and recovering the asset.
The yacht initially belonged to a Ukrainian weapon transport tycoon who invested in a luxury apartment in Trump Tower. When he died suddenly, the yacht was transferred to Cemezov's stepdaughter.
In March 2025, an American law firm signed a contract to help Russian citizen Sergei Cemezov in efforts to lift sanctions against him.
Chemezov is presented as “a businessman and philanthropic recognized at international level”.
What is not mentioned in the document has led in the last 18 years the Rostec defense donkey, which provides up to 80% of the weapons used by the Russian army in his war against Ukraine, including fighter jets, fighters, rockets, drones, tanks and artillery systems.
After a two round of sanctions against him and his family in 2022, US and EU lawyers were employed – some directly by Chemezov and his stepdaughter, others through an offshore company – to challenge the restrictions.
The decision had unexpected consequences: the steps to unlock Cermezov's most expensive good – a luxury boat – revealed the proxy holders of the foreign assets of Putin's associate.
The yacht that exposed the secrets of Sergei Cermezov
The Valerie superiah, 85 meters long, worth $ 140 million, renamed Meridian A, is blocked in the port of Barcelona in March 2022.
The yacht was detained due to the connection suspected with Sergei Cemezov, already under EU and US sanctions.
In the official property documents, it belongs to his stepdaughter, Anastasia Ignatova, a Russian teacher.
But behind her is a network tangled by offshore companies.
The information became public with the publication of the Pandora Papers report, based on a leak.
Spanish lawyers, acting on behalf of an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands, tried to challenge the authorities to hold the yacht.
The process in Spain has proven revealing, revealing previously unknown circumstances and revealing how Cemezov has registered foreign assets to hide their property.
The Spanish Treasury conducted its own study, after which he learned that the yacht was transferred to Chemezov's stepdaughter on April 17, 2018, after acquiring a company registered in the British Virgin Islands. It had shares in another offshore company, which owned the yacht at the time.
Ukrainian connection
The court documents do not reveal the name of the first official owner of the yacht, but mentions at least three important details: he had a leadership role at a branch of Rostec, he was associated with a company offering yachts and suddenly died at the end of 2017.
All these details take Boris Kogan, a businessman from Odessa, who died in October 2017, one day after he turned 61, following a heart attack.
Kogan was the co -owner of Kaalbye Group, a former important player in the shipping of weapons.
Kaalbye group companies were registered in Ukraine and offshore jurisdictions.
Although she was running a root logistics business in Ukraine, Kogan had a Russian passport and ties with high circles in Russia. He was part of the Board of Directors of RT-Logistika, a branch of the Russian state conglomerate Rostec, led by Cemezov. RT-Logistika was also involved in the transport of Russian weapons.
Kogan caught the attention of the American press after investing nearly $ 2 million in a Trump Tower apartment.
According to New York real estate registers, checked by Kyiv Independent, in 2012, Kogan mortgaged his daughter, Julia Kogan, who bought the luxurious apartment overlooking Fifth Avenue and Crown Building. At the beginning of 2017, she sold the apartment.
Kogan also owned a yacht in Odessa, but it would have been the proxy owner of the luxury yacht.
According to the Spanish Fiscal Agency, quoted by the High Court of Justice in Madrid, Kogan was behind the offshore SightView Consultants and Linkpoint Services Limited companies, which were used to hide the ownership of the yacht. After his death, Cemezov's stepdaughter was registered as the new owner of these companies.
Yacht changes its owner for the third time
According to the judicial documents of 2023, the new owner is the Russian businessman Albert Avdolian, although it is not clear how it was possible, but being that the yacht, in the property of a sanctioned person, could not be sold.
Lawyers employed by the Offshore Sulberg Services Limited claim claim that AVDolyan bought Chemezov's stepmother's yacht in July 2021, which would mean that he took the property before imposing sanctions to the stepdaughter.
The Spanish authorities underlined the striking time gap-more than a year-between the date of signing the sale-purchase contract and the date registered on the effective beneficiary certificate.
Avdolian is closely associated with Cemezov.
The Russian billionaire was a co -owner of the Russian telecommunications company Yotadevices together with the Russian state conglomerate, led by Cemezov.
The Spanish authorities quoted in the court decision describe the role of AVDolyan as a form of “Fiducia like Amico”, in which AVDolyan is a “trustworthy (or authorized) who officially acts as the owner of the ship”.
The eluding of sanctions
“These circumstances indicate one of the most common ways to circumvent the sanctions. The fact that the agreement was signed between two private parties could mean that the selling of the yacht was retroactive,” says Tumitiana Khutor, head of the Institute Legislative Ideas, a Ukrainian legal tank.
In July 2021, it could be considered a circumstances of sanctions, say lawyers. At that time, Cemezov was already under the sanctions of EU and the US in connection with the invasion of Russia in the Ukrainian Peninsula in 2014, which provided for the freezing of the resources it controlled even indirectly.
“The yacht was frozen since 2014,” said Anatoli Iarovii, a senior partner at the College of International Lawyers, based in Cyprus.
“This means that, from a legal point of view, it could not be sold in 2021, nor in 2022, regardless of the fact that Cemezov's stepmother had not yet been designated at that time.”
According to Spanish legislation, the circumvention of sanctions is not yet a crime, because it has not been officially encoded, and the Spanish authorities cannot, for some alone, are to confirm an exclusive yacht on the grounds of sanctions.
However, according to experts, Spanish authorities could follow other crimes, such as falsification of documents or money laundering.
Moreover, the US could also be involved in this case.
“A notable parallel is the confiscation of the tango yacht of the Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg in Mallorca, carried out by the Spanish authorities in cooperation with the Kleptocapture Operational Group of the Department of Justice,” says Iarovi.
The American jurisdiction on the alleged offenses was found because the payments for yacht maintenance were made by US corresponding bank accounts.
In March 2025, Chemezov signed an agreement with American lawyers to submit extrajudicial calls against US sanctions
The contract stipulates that lawyers may request specific American authorities to allow persons sanctioned to carry out certain transactions in the US and deletion requests to lift American sanctions.
“There are forms that people complement either to try to get approval for certain activities, or to get rid of sanctions. So that's exactly what happens,” explains Benjamin L. Schmitt, senior researcher at Perry World House at Pennsylvania.
The value of the agreement with American lawyers amounts to $ 2.6 million.
Yudisud Tjong Trading LLC, a trading company based in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, made the payment. The commercial company was established in July 2024, only eight months before signing the agreement with lawyers. According to international commercial records, the company has purchased several men's clothing lots in India after its establishment.
An equally interesting question is why Cemezov has decided to challenge American sanctions against him, given that his known foreign assets, such as villas and a yacht, are in the EU.
“There are several reasons why people like Chemezov could make efforts to raise US sanctions, even though most of their sanctioned properties are in Europe,” said Anastassia Fadyk, a Haas School of Business Assistant from Berkeley.
In addition to facilitating certain activities in the US, such as bank transactions, they could try to use the case in the EU. “If the US administration perceives as being more willing to eliminate certain restrictions, they can do it as an opening and, possibly, I can hope to use the case as a precedent for a litigation on the sanctions imposed by the EU later,” Fodyk believes.
