Italian authorities have confiscated two yachts belonging to Severstal CEO Alexei Mordashov and businessman Gennady Timchenko, La Reppublica reports. Earlier, both billionaires came under EU sanctions imposed due to Russia's military operation in Ukraine.

The yacht owned by Mordashov is called Lady M and was moored in the city of Imperia. According to the newspaper, the vessel is 65 meters long and was launched in 2013 at the American shipyard Palmer Johnson.

Timchenko's yacht was in the port of San Remo, the newspaper said. It is called Lena and is 40 meters long, according to La Reppublica.

In addition, in Tuscany, the Villa Lazzareschi, owned, according to the newspaper, by the State Duma deputy from United Russia, Oleg Savchenko, was arrested. He was placed on the EU sanctions list in February when the union imposed sanctions on 351 deputies who voted in support of an appeal to President Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of the DNR and LNR. The list of the European Union explains that in this way it "supported and set in motion decisions that violated the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine."

The Ministry of Economy and Finance of Italy announced that it had begun blocking the assets of Russian businessmen who fell under European sanctions. In total, the Italian authorities blocked €140 million in assets.

The EU introduced several packages of sanctions against Russia due to the military operation in Ukraine, including personal restrictions. In addition to Mordashov and Timchenko, among the businessmen, the list included Mikhail Fridman, Alisher Usmanov, Petr Aven and others. Also under sanctions were officials and politicians, among them the presidential representative Dmitry Peskov, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko and the head of the Ministry of Transport Vitaly Savelyev, top managers, including Igor Sechin and Nikolai Tokarev, employees of the Russian media and state channels, including Anton Krasovsky and Tigran Keosayan.

Mordashov claimed he did not understand why sanctions were imposed against him. “Answering the question about the introduction of EU sanctions against me, I want to emphasize that I am far from politics and have been creating economic value for the companies in which I worked in Russia and abroad all my life. I have absolutely nothing to do with the emergence of the current geopolitical tensions. I don’t understand why sanctions have been imposed on me,” he said.