The superyacht Graceful, described by international media including Forbes as the personal yacht of Russian President Vladimir Putin, passed through Danish waters on 29 June under escort of a Russian destroyer and a patrol vessel, DR reported.
The convoy had been monitored by the German coast guard and the Royal Danish Navy since 09:00 on Sunday 28 June and is being shadowed by the Danish patrol vessel P521 Freja.
The Danish Armed Forces told DR that monitoring vessels transiting the country's straits, including foreign state ships, is routine.
Route and tracking
Graceful crossed the Great Belt strait overnight and was later spotted passing the Danish island of Anholt before heading toward Grenen, the northern tip of the Jutland peninsula, DR reported. The vessel's position was confirmed through international maritime traffic monitoring services and photographs taken from the Danish coast by ship enthusiasts, according to DR.
The yacht is over 80 meters long and approximately 20 meters wide. According to Forbes, Graceful is valued at approximately $119 million.
AIS off since 2022
The transit is notable for the vessel's extended disappearance from electronic tracking. The vessel's transponder has been switched off since at least 30 August 2022, after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. The yacht was then spotted in St. Petersburg.
Its current destination is unknown.
The voyage marks the first confirmed public sighting of the vessel in international waters in over three years, and its emergence from Russian ports carries both symbolic and strategic weight. The yacht's reappearance comes at a moment of acute sensitivity in European security, with NATO member states closely tracking Russian military and political movements. That Graceful is travelling under naval escort — rather than quietly as a commercial vessel — signals a deliberate show of Russian state presence in NATO-adjacent waters. For Western governments, the transit also underscores the limits of the sanctions regime imposed following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine: despite broad efforts to freeze or seize assets linked to the Kremlin, the vessel has remained under Russian control and is now moving freely through some of Europe's busiest shipping lanes.
