A superyacht linked to one of Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s key allies has sailed through the Strait of Hormuz, despite the ongoing blockade of the critical shipping channel.<\/p>\n
The 142m-long (465 feet) Nord luxury boat, linked to sanctioned Russian billionaire Alexey Mordashov, travelled from Dubai to Muscat, Oman over the weekend, one of a few private vessels to transit through the strait in recent months.<\/p>\n
Iran has engaged with Russia in high-level talks this week as its standoff with the US over the strait\u2019s re-opening continues.<\/p>\n
Approximately one-fifth of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies normally pass through the waterway.<\/p>\n
Mordashov, who has close ties to Putin, is not listed as the formal owner of the luxury boat. However, Nord\u2019s records indicate it was registered to a firm owned by his wife in 2022.<\/p>\n
Nord, estimated to be worth over $500m (\u00a3370m), left Dubai on Friday night and arrived at Al Mouj, a marina in Oman\u2019s capital, on Sunday morning, according to data on the Marine Traffic platform.<\/p>\n
Maritime traffic through the Gulf channel is currently at a fraction of pre-war levels.<\/p>\n
The conflict has contributed to a sharp rise in global oil prices, with the global benchmark Brent crude rising to $109 (\u00a380) a barrel on Monday.<\/a><\/p>\n Iran has continued restricting shipping through the vital waterway after President Donald Trump announced US forces would impose a blockade on Iranian ports.<\/p>\n The Russian-flagged Nord managed to clear the strait despite private vessels largely avoiding the waterway since the outbreak of hostilities.<\/p>\n While long-term peace negotiations stall between the two sides<\/a>, Tehran has this week focused its diplomatic efforts on cementing its relationship with Russia.<\/p>\n Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted an Iranian delegation in St Petersburg on Monday, where Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi hailed their \u201cstrategic relationship\u201d.<\/p>\n Putin told Araghchi that the Iranian people were \u201ccourageously fighting\u201d for their sovereignty in the face of American and Israeli pressure, Russian state-run news agency Tass reported.<\/p>\n Araghchi shared photos on X showing him smiling and shaking hands with Putin and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.<\/p>\n He wrote: \u201cRecent events have evidenced the depth and strength of our strategic partnership.<\/p>\n The Russian superyacht has a swimming pool, submarine and helipad, according to a profile in the magazine Superyacht Times.<\/p>\n Mordashov has been targeted by western sanctions, including from the UK, US and European Union since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n Hong Kong<\/a> and the Maldives<\/a> have previously not seized the yacht despite calls from western nations to freeze his assets.<\/p>\n Mordashov is the chairman of Russia\u2019s largest steel and mining company Severstal.<\/p>\n With an estimated net worth of about $37bn (\u00a327bn), Mordashov is the richest Russian national listed by the US business magazine Forbes.<\/p>\n It is not clear if he was on board Nord while it passed through the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A superyacht linked to one of Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s key allies has sailed through the Strait of Hormuz, despite the ongoing blockade of the critical shipping channel. The 142m-long (465 feet) Nord luxury boat, linked to sanctioned Russian billionaire Alexey Mordashov, travelled from Dubai to Muscat, Oman over the weekend, one of a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}