A $500 million superyacht thought to belong to a Russian oligarch is returning to Russia after he was sanctioned

• A superyacht said to belong to Alexei Mordashov is returning to Russia after he was sanctioned.

• The website SuperYacht Fan says the yacht is worth $500 million and belongs to the oligarch.

• Mordashov is Russia's third-richest person. Italy has seized a property and another yacht of his.

A superyacht is returning to Russia after its purported owner, a Russian oligarch, was sanctioned.

Alexei Mordashov is believed to be the owner of Nord, a $500 million, 465-foot vessel, according to the website SuperYacht Fan.

The yacht is headed to Vladivostok, a city close to North Korea, and due to arrive on Tuesday, according to MarineTraffic and VesselFinder. Bloomberg first reported on the vessel's movement.

The West has been imposing sweeping sanctions on Russia to crush its economy and put pressure on President Vladimir Putin to call off his invasion of Ukraine. The measures include sanctioning Russian elites and oligarchs and freezing their assets.

The European Union sanctioned Mordashov on February 28, accusing him of "supporting actions and policies which undermine the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine."

"I have absolutely nothing to do with the emergence of the current geopolitical tension and I do not understand why the EU has imposed sanctions on me," Mordashov told the Russian news outlet TASS the day after the EU sanctions were announced. He has since been sanctioned by the UK, too.

Italy has already seized a $71 million superyacht belonging to Mordashov, as well as a $116 million property in Sardinia, Reuters reported this month. Since the invasion started, some oligarchs have been shifting their yachts and private jets.

Nord left Seychelles on March 12 and was last tracked in the Singapore Strait on Tuesday, according to MarineTraffic and VesselFinder. The yacht has an enclosed helicopter hangar, a swimming pool, a sauna, and a cinema, according to SuperYacht Fan.

The yachtmaker Lürssen and the yacht-design company Nuvolari Lenard, both of which SuperYacht Fan identified as Nord's developers, did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment about the vessel's ownership. Severstal, the Russian mining company that Mordashov majority-owns and controls, also did not immediately respond to Insider.

Mordashov is thought to be Russia's third-richest person, with an estimated net worth of about $21.8 billion, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, though his wealth has plummeted since Russia invaded Ukraine.

It's unclear whether Mordashov does own Nord, but he's among the Russian oligarchs shuffling their assets after being sanctioned. The day he was hit by EU sanctions, Mordashov shifted his 34% stake in the travel company TUI in two separate transactions. A nearly 30% stake went to a British Virgin Islands company believed to be controlled by his wife.

Earlier this month, Mordashov transferred control of a $1.1 billion stake in the mining company Nordgold to his wife and stepped down as a director.

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