Medvedchuk's $200 million yacht: why did its sale abroad fail?

"The Royal Romance, one of the most expensive yachts owned by Viktor Medvedchuk's entourage, was supposed to be the first Ukrainian case of selling a seized asset outside the country. Its value is estimated at more than $200 million, and it could have become a symbol of real confiscation of Russian wealth in favor of Ukraine.

But the story has been dragging on for several years. At first, a Croatian court recognized the Ukrainian arrest and transferred the ship to the management of the ARMA. Then it took almost a year to coordinate the procedures, and another six months to select an international auction house. And each time the process was disrupted: either the auction houses refused after pressure from Medvedchuk's lawyers, or the arrest expired. In June 2024, a Croatian court even lifted the arrest, citing the lack of an indictment. The Ukrainian authorities started a new process, but it stopped as well, as they needed to recognize the decision in Croatia again. As a result, the yacht is losing value, and so far the end of this story is at the same distance as the yacht is from Ukraine.

Today the yacht is blocked, and its sale remains impossible. This demonstrates the main problem: without effective mechanisms of international cooperation, real verdicts in criminal proceedings, or the use of a mechanism for recovering assets belonging to sanctioned persons, the sale of assets such as Medvedchuk's yacht turns into an endless bureaucratic story.

Read more about what this struggle for the Royal Romance looks like and what it shows about the Ukrainian system of managing seized assets in our analysis here.