A superyacht belonging to a Russian oligarch who purchased a Maltese passport in 2018 docked at the Vittoriosa marina on Friday morning.
The 70-metre Polaris, which is flagged in Malta, belongs to multi-millionaire Maxim Shubarev, chairman of Setl Group, one of Russia’s largest financial and industrial associations.
Shubarev is a Maltese citizen, having acquired a Maltese passport through the Individual Investor Programme in 2018.
The West has imposed a raft of sanctions against Russian individuals, although neither Shubarev nor Setl Group feature on the list.
However, a number of European countries have impounded superyacths belonging to Russian oligarchs.
According to reports, Shubarev is not on the vessel.
He reportedly bought the vessel in 2021, at around €80 million.
The vessel sailed into the Grand Harbour at 9am on Friday. It came from Viareggio in Italy.
In a tweet on Thursday, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said: “We can no longer welcome Kremlin cash and pretend there are no strings attached. Their super yachts shall find no harbour in our Europe. We can no longer sell passports to Putin’s friends.”
On Thursday, the government announced it was suspending the citizenship scheme to Russian and Belarussian individuals, saying “it cannot currently effectively carry out due diligence on such applicants.”
It also said that no Russian citizens who had obtained Maltese passports are on the sanctions list.
However, on Thursday the London Stock Exchange struck off a company run by a Russian oligarch who had obtained a Maltese passport in 2017.
The company is run by Pavel Grachev, whose name was one of many unearthed in the Passport Papers investigation, coordinated by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, which The Malta Independent was a part of.
Photo: Miguela Xuereb/Newsbook