The Hague – Dutch customs authorities have confiscated 14 yachts from shipyards, including 12 still under construction, as part of Western sanctions that are still growing imposed above The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the government said on Wednesday. The European and American authorities have done just that seized several yachts with ties to Russian tycoons under the unprecedented sanctions that followed after the February 24 invasion.
“Given the current measures, these ships cannot be delivered, transferred or exported at the moment,” Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra wrote in a letter to the Dutch parliament.
Francisco Ubilla / AP
The 12 yachts under construction, which include luxury boats over 38 yards in length, were being built at five different shipyards for “Russian beneficiaries,” the government said. The other two yachts are currently under maintenance.
- CBS News finds evidence of atrocities near the capital of Ukraine
“These are not people on European sanctions lists,” the Dutch minister said. However, the “ownership” of the yachts is being further investigated, including whether one of them was related to a person on the European sanctions list, Hoekstra said.
“The government attaches great importance to respecting and enforcing sanctions,” he added.
The Netherlands has also frozen 516 million euros in assets and 155 million euros in transactions, the minister said.
The United States was ready to announce a new package of sanctions against Russia on Wednesday in response to the alleged atrocities in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, sources familiar with the upcoming sanctions on CBS News confirmed this week.
Residents are reacting to the alleged massacre of Russian forces in Bucha
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The additional sanctions were to be announced in coordination with the Group of 7 and the European Union, and were designed to impose “significant costs” on Russia for its brutalities in Ukraine, sources said. The measures will include a ban on all new investment in Russia, increased sanctions on financial institutions and state-owned enterprises, and sanctions on Russian government officials and members of their families.
The measures are intended to “degrade the key instruments of Russian state power” and impose rapid economic damage on Russia, according to sources.
- In:
- War
- yacht
- Ukraine
- Oligarch
- Russia
- War crimes
- Vladimir Putin
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