Debunking Russian fakes. No, wife of Ukraine’s Defense Minister did not become co-owner of luxury yacht

Recently, social media users shared a fake about the wife of Ukraine’s Defense Minister — they claimed she became a co-owner of a 50-meter luxury Vertige yacht registered under the French flag and owned by a French company. Here’s how we’ve debunked it.

What happened?

At the end of April, social media users shared the supposed news that Anastasiia Fedorova, the wife of Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Defense Minister, became a co-owner of the 50-meter Vertige yacht (S501 Tankoa), which is “estimated” to cost €26 million.

First, this information appeared (archive) on the Telegram channel of Anton Hura, a Ukrainian blogger, who has been spreading Russian disinformation narratives since 2022.

Hura’s post said that the French company CENTRALEASE was established as a co-owner of the yacht. They registered it under the French flag, which was necessary to bypass legal restrictions for non-European Union citizens. Hura attached the document supposedly confirming the purchase of the yacht, dated Apr. 8, 2026, to the post.

The next day, the official Telegram channel of the Russian News Agency TASS published (archive) news about the purchase of the yacht by Fedorova, referring to its “source in Russian security forces.”

Other Russian online media shared the news, including Izvestiya (archive), Moskovlsyi Komsomolets (archive), Ria Novosti (archive), and Pravda.ru (archive). Foreign outlets also shared this information, including Romanian online media CutiaPandorei.org (archive), which systematically cites Russian and pro-Russian sources.

Russian online media which shared the news about Anastasiia Fedorova

Also, users of social media such as X (1, 2) and Facebook (1, 2, 3) shared this news in Russian, Ukrainian, German, and Polish.

“Anastasia (maiden name — Karpenko), wife of Mykhilo Fedorov, Ukrainian Defense Minister, became the owner of the superyacht Tankoa S501 Vertige, 50 meters long and costing €26 million. The yacht is registered under the French flag in Antibes. Anastasia Fedorova is named as the owner in the registry,” noted users of X.

Analysis

We investigated a certificate of yacht purchase that circulated online. The document contains no verification details other than the registration number: PFL/2026/204733015701.

The number of licenses issued by the French authorities can be checked on the website of the Ministry of Ecological Transition of France. We searched for the certificate listed in the shared document, and got no results.

A screenshot showing that the license registration number for the yacht purchase cannot be found.

In France, large yachts or commercial pleasure vessels (cruise ships or yachts for private use) are registered in the Registre International Français (RIF) system. This system was created to register commercial sea-going ships, as well as yachts over 15 meters in length that are used for commercial purposes.

The government website has a form for registering a vessel and obtaining a certificate, which requires the applicant’s nationality and address to be entered.

The document shared in the news contains no detailed information about the buyer, Anastasia Fedorova, other than her nationality, which violates current French legal requirements.

Comparison of a form for applying to register a vessel and the shared document.

Also, official French documents always contain numbers, service codes, and digital markers, none of which are shown in the shared image.

The document contains a duplicate of the yacht’s engine serial number, which also raised questions for us regarding its authenticity.

Second, we checked the yacht’s owner and its current status. The 50-meter Vertige S501 yacht, built by the Italian company Tankoa Yachts, has been owned by a French owner since 2015.

According to Marine Traffic, a real-time vessel-tracking platform, CENTRALEASE is the yacht’s owner, with its headquarters in Paris. The company specializes in the rental and leasing of machinery, equipment, and inventory.

The company JUST FOR YACHT is listed as the sole beneficial owner of the vessel, with a registered address of 67 Chemin des Bleuets, 83700 Saint-Raphaël, which also appears in a fake document.

When we did the fact-checking, the yacht was listed for sale and for charter. For example, on brokers’ websites (1, 2), a yacht is offered for charter at €270,000 per week. On the websites of brokerage firms YachtBuyer, Pelagia Yachting, and Boat International, the yacht is listed in the sales section at a price of €24.5 million.

The yacht has been on the market since October 2024.

A screenshot of the website where mentioned yacht is available for rent

A screenshot of the website where mentioned yacht is listed for sale.

So, the document that supposedly confirms that the wife of Ukraine’s Defense Minister purchased a yacht for €26 million is fake. Several inconsistencies indicate this. The yacht itself is still for sale, as evidenced by current listings on brokerage websites.

Conclusion: Fake

Read more

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