Luxury Yacht Linked to Russian Oligarch Passes Through Strait of Hormuz

War in the

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U.S.-Iran Talks

Israel-Lebanon Truce

Strait of Hormuz

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Luxury Yacht Linked to Russian Oligarch Passes Through Strait of Hormuz

The Nord, a 464-foot vessel, appears to be tied to Aleksei A. Mordashov, a Russian steel mogul who is under American and European sanctions.

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The Nord, anchored off Hong Kong in 2022. In that year, the U.S. State Department publicly raised concerns after Hong Kong said it would not seize the vessel.

Credit...

Reuters

By

Lynsey Chutel

Ivan Nechepurenko

and

Jenny Gross

April 28, 2026,

8:51 a.m. ET

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A luxury superyacht linked to a Russian oligarch passed through the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, data showed on Tuesday, despite the parallel blockades maintained there by the United States and Iran.

The 464-foot vessel, the Nord, appears to be tied to Aleksei A. Mordashov, a steel mogul who is subject to American and European sanctions. The vessel left Port Rashid in Dubai, where it had been docked for weeks, on Friday and sailed through the strait on Saturday, according to data from the tracking service VesselFinder.com and Kpler, a firm that tracks marine traffic.

Michelle Wiese Bockmann, a senior maritime intelligence analyst at the data provider Windward, said it appeared likely that Iran had let the yacht through. Data showed that it had sailed close to Larak, an Iranian island, using a route that

Iran has established

for vessels that it is allowing to pass. The Nord’s transponder, which allows the vessel to be tracked by shipping monitors, was turned on, she said.

“The I.R.G.C. has stated all vessels transiting need permission — Nord would have been the same as others,” Ms. Wiese Bockmann said, referring to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Since the Nord left from Dubai, she said, it might not have been subject to the American blockade, which targets vessels going to and from Iranian ports.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and much of its natural gas normally passes, has been severely restricted since the recent war with Iran began at the end of February. Iran now says that ships can pass only with the Revolutionary Guards’ permission, and the United States

has imposed its own blockade

in response to Iran’s. Most shipowners and insurers do not consider the strait safe enough to traverse, Ms. Wiese Bockmann said.

Russia is one of Iran’s key allies. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi,

met with Russia’s president,

Vladimir V. Putin, in Moscow on Monday to discuss Iran’s war with the United States and Israel.

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