France has seized a yacht linked to the head of the Russian oil company Rosneft Igor Sechin - a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin - at the Mediterranean port of La Siota, Finance Minister Bruno Lemaire said today.
The development came as Western states are imposing massive sanctions, including 'asset freezes', against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
"We thank French customs officials for enforcing European Union sanctions against those close to the Russian government," Lemaire said in a Twitter post.
According to the finance ministry's information service, the yacht belongs to a company in which Sechin was identified as a major shareholder.
At the same time, French authorities seized another merchant ship in the port of Loiret in Brittany, also linked to Russian interests.
The Russian president's trusted chief of staff and head of the oil company, Rosneft, has for years been a ghost of a man. The state energy behemoth, where Sechin serves as chairman, a few years ago completed the biggest takeover in Russia's history, buying a majority stake in the British-Russian joint venture TNK-BP and becoming the world's largest listed oil producer.
Everyone talked about him, his name was always involved in the most serious issues facing the Kremlin, but few had seen him in person. He was always accompanied by a reputation as the toughest man in the country - apparently after Putin.
Igor Sechin, 62, was a former Soviet-era intelligence official. In 2013 he was the only Russian on TIME's list of the 100 most powerful people on the planet.
Source: protothema.gr
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