A Ukrainian sailor has been arrested for allegedly trying to sink a yacht belonging to his oligarch boss after “dictator” Vladimir Putin invaded his country last week, telling cops that the yacht owner had made his money selling weapons to the Russian military.
The sailor is reported as having allegedly tried to sink the yacht, called Lady Anastasia and reportedly belonging to Alexander Mijeev, by flooding the engine room of the vessel, which is docked in Port Adriana, a marina on the Spanish Balearic island of Majorca.
Mijeev is a Russian tycoon who has business interests in manufacturing weapons, including military helicopters, for the Russian government, according to the statement the sailor gave the police after his arrest on Saturday, 26th February.
The sailor reportedly told the civil guard, while being questioned, that he sees “the owner as a criminal who earns money selling weapons that now kill Ukrainians.”
After seeing the shocking images of civilian buildings in Ukraine having been hit by Russian projectiles, the sailor, who has not been named but who is reportedly 55 years old, decided to take “revenge” on his boss.
He had access to the engine room of the vessel and allegedly opened some valves that would cause the vessel to flood and sink.
But he was unsuccessful in making the vessel sink after a member of staff from the upmarket Port Adriano marina, prevented this from happening, with the help of the yacht’s other sailors.
The alleged would-be saboteur has reportedly been released after providing a statement and being charged.
The saboteur reportedly told the police that he had tried to sink the vessel to cause material damage, adding that his intention had never been to hurt anyone.
He reportedly said that he took the decision after seeing the devastation left by a Russian missile that had hit a block of flats in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in a residential area, according to the Spanish police.
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The saboteur reportedly said: “A lot of people that lived there had nothing to do with the military.”
Ukrainian sailor reportedly said that he lives in a similar type of building and that he “understood” that the missile had been produced by a company that belongs to the vessel’s owner, his boss, Mijeev.
The lady Anastasia is a 47-metre (155-foot) vessel that was built in 2007 and is reportedly worth approximately EUR 6 million (GBP 5 million) and has a capacity for 10 people.
