Vagit Alekperov’s superyacht, Galactica Super Nova.
Heesen Yachts
- The captain of an oligarch’s yacht said he gave crew 48 hours to leave a port after Russia’s invasion.
- The yacht left Spain a day earlier than the captain’s orders and sailed to Montenegro, per The WSJ.
- Tracking signals from Galactica Super Nova, owned by Vagit Alekperov, stopped after it left Montenegro.
The captain of a Russian oligarch’s superyacht said he gave crew 48 hours to set sail from a port in Spain one day after Russia invaded Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The 230-foot vessel, Galactica Super Nova, is worth $80 million and owned by Vagit Alekperov, per SuperYacht Fan, who hasn’t yet been sanctioned. Alekperov is chairman of Russian oil firm Lukoil and has a net worth of nearly $23 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.
The superyacht was previously docked in a port in Barcelona, Spain, in late February, The Journal reported.
The day after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine to carry out a “special military operation,” the captain of Galactica Super Nova told the crew to prepare to sail in 48 hours, a former crew member told The Journal.
The captain was away on vacation and had come back to the ship early, the crew member said.
“We are leaving Sunday,” the captain said to his staff on February 25, according to the crew member. The superyacht left the next day — one day ahead of schedule, they added.
Galactica Super Nova arrived in the port of Tivat in Montenegro on March 1 but left the following day after the country’s government said it would adopt EU sanctions, despite not being an EU member.
When the superyacht left Tivat, its tracking signals stopped, which led to speculation that it might be trying to avoid detection.
The ship-tracking website Marine Traffic showed on Wednesday that Galactica Super Nova was located off the coast of Montenegro.
Although Alekperov hasn’t been sanctioned, the US has listed him among the politicians and oligarchs who have close ties to Putin, making his superyacht a target in potential future sanctions, per The Journal.
Read the original article on Business Insider 
