Despite the 2022 arrest of the superyacht Royal Romance, which is linked to Viktor Medvedchuk, who is accused of high treason, it has not yet been sold. Accordingly, Ukraine has not received funds from its sale.
According to the National Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA), the competition to select an international auction house to sell the yacht did not take place because both of its winners refused to participate, citing pressure from Medvedchuk’s lawyers. At the same time, in 2024, the Croatian court canceled the arrest of the vessel imposed at the request of Ukraine.
Currently, the yacht remains in Croatia due to sanctions restrictions of the European Union and new legal steps of the Ukrainian side. Ukraine has proposed to Croatia to conclude a special agreement and, having sold Medvedchuk’s yacht, share the funds between the countries. The Suspilne investigative editorial office learned about this from ARMA’s response to the information request.
Why Ukraine has not yet sold the yacht arrested in 2022
In March 2022, the Lychakivskyi District Court of Lviv seized a yacht officially owned by the Marshall Islands company Lanelia Holdings Ltd and which the investigation links to Viktor Medvedchuk. The arrest was imposed as part of criminal proceedings against Medvedchuk for high treason and aiding a terrorist organization.
In April 2022, the Lychakivskyi District Court of Lviv transferred the vessel to the management of ARMA, in particular for further sale. Since the yacht was located in Croatia, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine appealed to the Croatian authorities with a request to recognize the Ukrainian court decision and arrest the vessel.
The Croatian court imposed a two-year seizure on the yacht, the maximum period allowed under Croatian law. However, ARMA began looking for an international auction house to sell Royal Romance only in 2024. As ARMA reported in response to our inquiry, the Cabinet of Ministers allowed a competition among specialized companies that could organize an auction to sell the yacht only in February 2024, that is, three to four months before the expiration of the seizure period imposed by the Croatian court.
On April 23, 2024, the auction house Troostwijk Auctions from the Netherlands won the competition. The American company Boathouse Auctions took the second place.
However, on April 30, Troostwijk Auctions announced its refusal to participate in the sale of the yacht. “This happened as a result of pressure from Viktor Medvedchuk’s lawyers,” ARMA noted.
After that, the right to conduct the sale was transferred to Boathouse Auctions. However, it also refused to participate. According to the agency, on June 3, 2024, the American auction house “announced its refusal to further participate, citing the same legal obstacles from representatives of the former owner’s company as the first winner of the competition, which created unacceptable reputational and legal risks for the company”.
In fact, the competition to select a company to sell the property failed and the official market value of the yacht was never determined. In 2015, it was purchased for about 200 million euros, and in 2024, ARMA noted that its insured value was 137 million euros.
What was happening during another two-year period?
In June 2024, the Croatian court lifted the arrest of the Royal Romance yacht due to the Ukrainian side’s failure to provide an indictment in the criminal case against Viktor Medvedchuk. At the same time, the vessel remained under restrictions, as the EU sanctions against Medvedchuk were in effect.
In the same year, the Ukrainian court re-arrested the yacht and transferred it to the management of ARMA for further sale. In response to our request, the agency noted that the most effective way to sell the asset under the laws of Croatia, where the yacht is located, is using the Asset Sharing Agreement mechanism.
In October 2025, Ukrainian and Croatian officials discussed the procedure for recognizing Ukrainian court decisions and the subsequent sale of the yacht. The Croatian side confirmed its readiness to consider this issue after receiving the necessary procedural documents.
ARMA reported that after the indictment was submitted to the court in February 2026, the necessary materials were sent to Croatia. A draft agreement on the sharing of assets is currently being worked out there. The sale of the yacht will be possible after the Croatian court recognizes the relevant decision of the Ukrainian court.
“At the same time, we inform you that in the event of the sale of the asset, the funds received from its sale will be subject to storage until the adoption of a final court decision in the relevant criminal proceedings. The procedure for their further use will be determined in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine, the terms of relevant international agreements, and court decisions that have entered into legal force. The final decision on the transfer or use of funds received from the sale of the asset will be made in accordance with the provisions of the asset sharing agreement and the requirements of the legislation of Ukraine and the Republic of Croatia,” ARMA added.
ARMA does not spend money on yacht maintenance
As we noted above, the maintenance of Royal Romance is estimated at $15-20 million per year.
In response to the request, ARMA reported that it did not spend money on the maintenance, security, or insurance of Medvedchuk’s yacht.
The agency explained that due to the lack of actual transfer of the yacht to management, they are unable to carry out any measures regarding its maintenance. According to “Ukrainska Pravda”, Croatia does not bear the costs of maintenance either. Millions of euros per year are supposedly paid by Medvedchuk.
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Royal Romance is a 92-meter premium vessel built in the Netherlands by Feadship and delivered to the customer in 2015. It can accommodate up to 14 guests in seven cabins and is serviced by a crew of 22. Royal Romance is among the 5% of the largest yachts in the world in terms of length.
Until 2021, the Royal Romance yacht was owned by Fregata Marine Ltd, a company registered in the Marshall Islands. Its ultimate beneficiary was Viktor Medvedchuk’s wife, Oksana Marchenko.
On February 19, 2021, sanctions were imposed on Medvedchuk and Marchenko in Ukraine. On March 31, 2021, as can be seen from the ruling of the Pecherskyi District Court of Kyiv, the yacht became the property of Lanelia Holdings Ltd, a company associated with Russian businessman Alexei Inkin. The latter, as stated in the ruling of the Pecherskyi District Court, has business ties with Medvedchuk.
According to the investigation, in 2015, Viktor Medvedchuk, together with his accomplices, organized a scheme to withdraw more than 205 million hryvnias through state-owned coal enterprises and shell companies. Investigators believe that the funds received as a result of this activity could have been used to purchase the Royal Romance yacht. In addition, according to the law enforcement, the participants in the scheme transferred 30 million hryvnias to representatives of the “Luhansk People’s Republic” and “Donetsk People’s Republic” groups.