this is bbc world news, the headlines ukraine's government says victory in the war against russia is only a matter of time, after the recapture of kherson. russian forces completed a withdrawal from the city on friday. further talks between senior commanders from the ethiopian military and tigrayan rebels have ended with the signing of a deal to implement a recently agreed cessation of hostilities. the democrats have moved a step closer to retaining control of the us senate, as mark kelly is re—elected in arizona. only two states — georgia and nevada —

are yet to be declared after tuesday's mid—term election. and twitter has halted its new eight dollar blue tick subscription — in a u—turn by the social media platform's new billionaire owner elon musk. the firm's shares fell 4% on friday amid the confusion. now on bbc news — it's time for our world. for years, many russian billionaires enjoyed lavish lifestyles in the west. they bought the most sought—after villas and holidayed on their beloved superyachts. but with russia's invasion of ukraine, theirfairytale came to an abrupt end. western sanctions sparked a game of cat and mouse between some of the world's most powerful nations and some of russia's richest men. there was a real frenzy around the world between democracies

to see who could sanction the most people the most quickly, who could sanction the biggest yacht. we got stopped because this is a big, blue, easily visible, high—profile target. for the first time, the head of the us kleptocapture task force reveals how they caught a superyacht... we saw it scrambling out of waters where we would normally be able to seize it. security, security, security... ..and what was inside. one of the objects that we were looking at appears like a faberge egg. there's no place to hide. you can try to move the boat across the ocean, but we'll still come and grab it. this is the inside story of the hunt for the russian superyachts. siren wails. russia has invaded ukraine.

early this morning, we heard explosions here in the capital, kyiv, and in other major cities. on february 2a, vladimir putin's invasion shattered peace in europe and shook the rest of the world. within hours, he called a meeting in the kremlin. and summoned 37 of his most powerful oligarchs — ultra—wealthy businessmen who control key sectors of the russian economy. he knows that their businesses are critical to the functioning of his government. he's got steelmakers in there that are going to keep making steel for his tanks. he's got bankers in there. putin calls the meeting, really, for two reasons. the first is to make them, if you like, complicit in the action. he is saying that, "these are my people, they support me." the second was to say, "if you wanted to keep your wealth and your power in russia, you've got to be

with me and all the consequences that that entails." but putin's war summit failed to spark much enthusiasm among his audience. i know for a fact that there were lots of oligarchs who really did not want to be in that room. you only have to look at the faces of the oligarchs — they knew that this invasion was going to destroy their investments, and almost certainly lead to their sanctioning. as russian troops made their way into ukraine, western governments, led by president biden, were preparing to hit back with an unprecedented campaign of sanctions against key sectors of the russian economy and individuals. we're joining with european allies to find and seize their yachts, their luxury apartments, their private jets. cheering and applause. we're coming for your ill—begotten gain. my name is andrew adams,

i'm a federal prosecutor here in manhattan at the united states attorney's office. at some point, i received a call. just after president biden�*s speech, andrew adams was appointed to lead a new us government task force called kle ptoca ptu re. the goals for us are to target the people who are on the sanctions list, to bring any charge available, to seize any asset available. the idea is to disgorge profits in any way that we can as quickly as we can. so we look for sanctions evasion, we look for money laundering, we look for efforts to avoid export controls that we've put into place here in the united states. part of the goal here is to unwind the fruits of corruption. part of it, in my mind, is to punish what are, in effect, massive crimes. ourjob as law enforcement officers... andrew adams has built his

strategy on his experience prosecuting the mafia. for ten years, he fought against organised and violent crime. it's hard to imagine a more violent crime on a more massively organised scale than this illegal war that's going on right now. from the outset, adams and his team focused on sanctioned oligarchs' most highly prized possessions. movable assets like yachts, like air planes were at the top of mind, because they are valuable, they have enormous value in some cases. but tracking down those assets would be easier said than done. in recent years, barcelona has become a magnet for superyachts. and since the pandemic, the industry has been booming. alex finley is a former cia officer turned writer and yacht spotter who lives in barcelona. you could go down to the port

any day of the week and you are sure to have a number of russian megayachts. alex has an interest in russia and how its elite operates within western democracies. in the run—up to the war, she started tracking their luxury vessels. i saw four different russian oligarch yachts. one was galactica super nova. the $75 million galactica super nova is one of the fastest yachts in its range with more power than 16 formula 1 cars. it boasts a 6m infinity pool built above a space that turns into a nightclub at sunset. galactica super nova is owned by vagit alekperov, russia's fifth—richest man. henry foy met alekperov and president putin

when he was the financial times moscow bureau chief. what's really unique about alekperov is that he was a government minister in the soviet union who looked after oil and gas assets, and when he sees capitalism coming, jumps and reinvents himself as an oil executive and the controller and owner of a private oil company. he remained the powerful president of lukoil for nearly 30 years. the only way he's able to maintain control of a major oil company in private hands is that the kremlin trusts him, that putin knows he's not going to cause trouble. within 48 hours of putin's meeting his oligarchs, vagit alekperov�*s yacht was on the move. i walked past the berth of galactica super nova and...she was gone. two days after the invasion of ukraine, galactica super nova sailed from the port of barcelona.

she passed around the coast of italy and arrived in tivat, montenegro on march i. but within 2a hours, she set sail again. we see galactica super nova leaving montenegro and then. . . poof. ..disappears. as the galactica left the port of tivat, its signal was lost. it's one of several of the oligarch�*s vessels that have mysteriously gone dark since the start of the sanctions. in april, vagit alekperov was sanctioned by the uk, but his yacht was already long gone. in new york, investigators knew that more vessels risked slipping through their net. the challenges with those kinds of valuable, movable assets are that they can move, and they can move to

jurisdictions that i believe oligarchs assume will be safe. you could look at maps of boat traffic and just see boats going all over the world. we had to move quickly. working with the spanish authorities, kleptocapture seized the $90 million yacht tango moored in majorca and owned by sanctioned billionaire viktor vekselberg. while spain detained three more yachts, germany impounded dilbar, the world's largest yacht, owned by putin's ally, alisher usmanov. italy also detained fouryachts, including alexei mordashov�*s lady m. the scale, the number of individuals, the breadth of them, and also the coordination between western allies is just unprecedented. for many of russia's richest men, the attention was unfamiliar and unwelcome.

vladimir solovyov is a prominent russian tv propagandist who had three of his properties frozen in italy. in london, the british government was about to make their move. one morning in march, the captain of the superyacht phi was preparing to set sailfrom canary wharf. my crew and i were having our morning coffee when we saw numerous camera crews on the quay. it's a yacht, which belongs to a russian oligarch, friends of putin. on the dockside was a cabinet minister, transport secretary grant shapps. well, we're not going to allow this yacht to sail. it cannot be right that oligarchs, people who've benefited from putin should continue to sail in and out of london.

it looked quite obviously staged. he was posing like a big—game hunter who'd just shot a lion, and it was several minutes before the uniform police officers arrived. boarding the $41; million superyacht phi was the uk's national crime agency. it was gutting, it was heartbreaking. the phi's owner, sergei naumenko, is not on any sanctions list. instead, his yacht was detained on the basis that it is owned, controlled or operated by a person connected with russia. the owner of this vessel is a semiretired, mid—level, successful russian businessman. mr naumenko is absolutely not an oligarch and he's not, as described, a close personal friend of vladimir putin. if this were an oligarch�*s boat, it would be four times the size. the phi was now stuck in canary wharf, unable to move.

in the us, the kleptocapture task force had set their sights on a much bigger target — the $325 million yacht amadea. the amadea's a massive yacht. even among megayachts, it's a luxury villa that floats on the water. it has dozens of rooms, it has swimming pools and chandeliers, it has dining rooms that dwarf most people's dining rooms. the ownership of this 106m yacht is at the centre of a dispute. kleptocapture says it's owned by russian senator and billionaire businessman suleyman kerimov. he was one of the oligarchs who attended putin's summit at the start of the war. but kerimov denies owning the amadea. kerimov is famously discrete, he hasn't given an interview in the entire time that he's been a billionaire.

but we do know some aspects about his life — he's a man who likes the finer side of life and doesn't always think that money should be spent in russia. in 2006, kerimov crashed his ferrari in the french riviera, nearly dying from his burns. a decade later, he was investigated in france, and in 2018, he was sanctioned by the us for being an official of the government of the russian federation. with a net worth around $10 billion, kerimov allegedly bought the amadea last year in august. it's on this transaction that kleptocapture focused their attention. it is improbable that that boat wasn't either purchased with or heavily financed by us dollars. that gives us a hook. while kleptocapture looked into the yacht�*s financing, amadea had slipped its moorings in the caribbean and was heading for the panama canal.

two weeks later, it stopped in mexico and sailed west into the pacific ocean. we saw it scrambling out of waters where we would normally be able to seize it. it became critical when it turned off its transponder. essentially, the boat tried to go dark. trading intelligence with their international partners, kleptocapture discovered the amadea was en route to fiji. welcoming them there at the port were fijian authorities acting on behalf of the united states government in an effort to actually seize and detain the yacht. soon, the vessel's registered owners filed appeals to get the boat released. but the us government eventually won the legal battle. the goal at that point was to as quickly as possible move that boat from fiji into us waters. it's a long, long journey. having just taken it

from an oligarch, it has some serious security risks. we needed a new crew, a crew that we could rely on. security, security, security, all stations, all stations, all stations. this is the united states coastguard sector, san diego. after nearly three weeks of sailing, the amadea finally arrived in the port of san diego, california. inbound yacht, the amadea. we're approaching ballast point at 10 knots... three days later, the us treasury also blocked over $1 billion worth of assets in a trust, which they say is linked to kerimov. i felt vindicated that our facts and our legal arguments were correct, but that's really the beginning of a process here in the united states, it's not the end. the us�*s ultimate goal is to sell the vessel and send the proceeds to ukraine. at the end of the day,

we may have the ability to forfeit even the things that are on the yacht. what you find when you go onto these yachts often are showpieces that are designed to display their wealth. one of the objects that we're looking at appears like a faberge egg. there are a handful of authentic faberge eggs in the world, many of them are accounted for, and so the investigation of this egg and its authenticity is ongoing. with their exquisite craftsmanship, faberge eggs are highly prized by some of russia's richest men. these eggs are owned by viktor vekselberg, the oligarch whose yacht tango was seized by the spanish and the us authorities. maybe it's a real faberge egg, maybe it's not a real faberge egg. time will tell. while so far the eu commission says they've frozen $17 billion worth of russian assets, the united states can use more powerful, invasive laws.

we have a more aggressive forfeiture system that goes beyond simply freezing an asset in place. but it takes those assets and makes them the property of the united states. but before they can do that, there's one more major hurdle. ultimately, we have to prove in court that suleyman kerimov is the owner of this boat, and that the boat itself represents the proceeds of a sanctions violation on his behalf. and that is no easy task. identifying ownership of yachts is extremely complex. yachts are never owned in the name of the oligarch themselves. they'll be owned through a series of companies in tax havens around the world, which are difficult to investigate. while the us authorities have identified kerimov as the owner of the amadea, on paper, the yacht belongs to a company

registered offshore, millmerran investment limited, whose ultimate beneficial owner is a russian businessman called eduard khudainatov. he's got close connections to president putin, but on examination, it becomes pretty clear that he is not an individual who could afford to own those yachts. the us believe that that khudainatov acts as front man for more prominent individuals. eduard khudainatov, he is not a sanctioned individual in the united states, which makes him a perfect strongman for this purpose. he also claims to be the owner of several other multimillion—dollar, half—billion—dollar yachts implausibly. one of those yachts is the $700 million scheherazade,

docked in tuscany, italy since september last year. according to a group led by russian opposition leader alexei navalny, this 140m superyacht could be linked to president putin himself. early in may, as the yacht was preparing to leave, the italian police dispatched a boat to detain it. weeks later, the eu added khudainatov to their sanctions list. in october, italy froze more of his properties, including a 30—room villa in portofino on the italian riviera. what we have seen is a sea change in global partners' reaction to russia. if things in russia don't change, then these sanctions won't go away. more than eight months on from vladimir putin's invasion of ukraine, the war he thought would take days is still raging. largely hidden from view, the sanctions fight also goes on. putin. putin has accused the west

of unleashing a sanctions war against russia, and the kremlin has threatened to retaliate. this is a regime that has blowback, that has impact on us as western democracies. we are going to have to suffer gas shortages, oilshortages, disruption in our industries, and that's something that different political leaders across the world are really struggling to reconcile at the moment. the west may be bracing for a tough winter, but the us believe sanctions are taking a much greater toll on russia. the sanctions that are in place, they don't stop at the list ofjust rich russians. the idea here is to target economically sensitive areas, to target companies that are critical to the russian economy and to the russian war machine. now, the us authorities are stepping up the pace. in the last few weeks, they indicted russian oligarch oleg deripaska for sanctions evasion, and two of his associates were arrested, one of them in the uk.

kleptoca ptu re says there's more to come. it's a priority for us to look at facilitators. we think about money launderers. that's the next wave that will be coming down the pike. we could expect to see handcuffs in the coming weeks and months. vagit alekperov�*s galactica super nova was eventually spotted off a port on turkey's southern coast. it's one of several sanctioned oligarchs' yachts that have sought haven in turkey or the uae, out of reach of western sanctions. alekperov resigned as president of lukoil after being sanctioned. he did not respond to our request for comment. back in london, the phi is still unable to move. one day, eventually, we will sail off down the thames. we will eventually. the uk department for transport told us they stand firmly by their decision

to detain the phi. in san diego, locals have welcomed a big new attraction. ok, mum, show your boat off! that's mine! the amadea now sits by a fishing pier, awaiting its fate. suleyman kerimov�*s representative told us, "we stand by our statement that ownership of the yacht is denied and unproven." eduard khudainatov has not responded to our request for comment. the us kleptocapture task force says the amadea's story is a warning to other sanctioned oligarchs. your efforts certainly are not safe in any country that you want to be spending your time in. you can try to move the boat across the ocean, but we'll still come and grab it. the hunt for the russian

superyachts goes on. hello. recent days have been exceptionally warm for this time of november. it was the warmest armistice day on record, friday, and through the weekend it will stay exceptionally mild. so, just why is it so warm at the moment? well, it is because of where we are pulling our air in from across the uk. looking at our pressure pattern, nothing particularly unusual for the remainder of the weekend, high pressure to the east, low—pressure to the west, but follow these fronts and we get to where we are sourcing the air that we are pulling

into the uk from, a long, long way south in the atlantic, some of it coming all the way up from the canaries, that is why it is so mild. typically, our temperatures at this point in november would bejust about in double figures, tens or elevens. for sunday, in many areas, we are forecasting highs of six, seven, maybe even eight degrees above that. however, looking further ahead into the week coming up, we do see the high pressure in the east beginning to give way, we do see low—pressure systems starting to make their way in from the atlantic so instead of southerly and feed, we start to pick up a more westerly fetch and with that more mixed air, it has got elements of arctic air in it, it is generally cooler, and what we will end up with is our temperatures getting back closer to average values. nothing especially cold, though, in our outlook, and nothing particularly frosty by night. but through the week ahead, temperatures easing back to more average values. some quite punchy spells of weather to contend with, though, particularly through the middle part of the week.

for remembrance sunday, it is looking rather quiet, actually, there could be some lingering low cloud, even some mist and fog adjacent to some of our north sea coasts. it will get windier in the west later on in the day, some rain by the evening, but temperatures 17 or 18 very widely, perhaps even 19 somewhere in the south—east of england. the wind will pick up in the west over sunday night into the early hours of monday, and they will be some rain for a time, too, quite wet potentially in western areas early on on monday, we will tend to see the rain clearing as we goes on, and it should actually get brighter in the west. but that tuesday and wednesday, at the moment it looks like we can see a couple of deep areas of low pressure coming in from the south—west, a couple of very windy days and some very heavy rain to contend with as well, but it is western and southern exposures that we are particularly concerned with, in terms of gusts hitting up to gale force in the south—west of england and the english channel late wednesday into the early hours of thursday, particularly windy. the winds will start to die down, though, as this area of low pressure pulls off towards the north sea through thursday daytime, and we will, i think, see the rain easing generally

but some sharper showers still getting fed in to the west. here are our temperatures by thursday, and they are far more normal values for this point in november. as for the end of the week, well, it looks like things will briefly be a little quieter, but further ahead next weekend into the early days of the following week, the jet stream continuing to plumb weather systems directly towards the uk, very much a westerly direction so it looks like we will see our temperatures staying around average values. as i said, nothing particularly cold, in terms of our outlook through the next ten days or so, but i think we can anticipate some heavier spells of rain, particularly once we get through next weekend, but still very mild now in the short term.

this is bbc news i'm kasia madera. our top stories... people take to the streets in celebration as the ukrainian city of kherson is retaken after months of occupation. two planes crash in mid—air at an airshow in dallas. so far there are no deatils of casualties. the democrats are a step closer to retaining control of the us senate, as mark kelly is re—elected in arizona. the ethiopian military and tigrayan rebels sign an agreement to immediately implement a peace deal that ends almost two years of fighting. twitter says you now won't have to pay $8 for a blue tick subscription — in a u—turn by the social media platform's new owner elon musk.