this is bbc world news, the headlines the united states has announced it will require negative covid tests for travellers from china, following growing alarm at the rapid increase in chinese infections. tighter measures have also been announced by italy, japan, taiwan and india. as people flee kherson, kyiv says russia has carried out more than 30 rocket attacks in the past 2a hours. air raid sirens have sounded across ukraine. people have been asked to stay in shelters. pope francis has asked people to pray for his predecessor, benedict xvi — who he says, is very ill. the vatican says benedict's condition has worsened in recent hours. and britain is on course to record its warmest year ever, after a summer of blistering

heatwaves and a mild autumn and spring. every month apart from december has been warmer than average. you are watching bbc news. now, ourworld: the hunt for the russian superyachts. 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. 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 kleptocapture. 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 i 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 four yachts, 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 sail from 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 semi—retired, 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 suleiman 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. radio: security, security, security, all stations, - all stations, all stations. this is the united states coast guard sector, san diego. after nearly three weeks of sailing, the amadea finally arrived in the port of san diego, california. radio: 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 suleiman 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 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 straw man 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 of just 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. you can 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, mom. show your boat off! that's mine! the amadea now sits by a fishing pier, awaiting its fate. suleiman 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 assets 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 there. despite some cold weather earlier in december, the met office has announced that, provisionally, this year has been the uk's warmest year on record. every month apart from december has seen temperatures above average, and, actually, as we close out the year, we are going to stick with some relatively mild weather. it means that most of us will see outbreaks of rain and some strong winds, any snow, really, confined to high ground in the north of the uk. there is going to be a lot of rain for some. over the next five days, we will see close to 100 millimetres of rain accumulating over some high ground in the western side of england and parts of wales, all of that being brought to us by this big stripe of cloud,

a succession of weather systems working in from the atlantic, bringing some outbreaks of rain. we saw some quite heavy rain pushing north—eastwards during wednesday. that's clearing away to leave a mix of sunny spells and showers for thursday. some of the showers will be heavy, wintry over high ground in the north of the uk. and a widely windy day, as well. the strongest winds will always be around some of our coasts. temperatures a little down on wednesday's values, but still, five to ten degrees is not too bad for this time of year. into friday, here comes another weather system from the atlantic. that is going to bring some outbreaks of heavy rain moving through quite quickly, sweeping its way north—eastwards but cold enough for some snow over high ground in northern scotland. there may even be something wintry to relatively low levels herejust for a time. but in the south, certainly nothing wintry, temperatures of 12 or 13 degrees. as we get into the weekend, into the new year period, of course, things do get a little bit complex.

to the south of us, we'll see various frontal systems with the potential for outbreaks of rain. for the northern half of the uk, colder air tries to dig its way in. so something of a split in our weather fortunes for new year's eve, cold enough for some wintry showers, especially over high ground in northern scotland. further south, a little rain likely, and temperatures ranging from five degrees in aberdeen and glasgow to thirteen in london, maybe fourteen in norwich. towards midnight, we may see rain gathering down towards the south. it's likely to be quite cold in the north. and for new year's day, some of this wet weather may spill a little further northwards. there is uncertainty in the detail by this stage. any of that wet weather that does get up into scotland could turn to sleet and snow over high ground. temperatures four or five degrees, but it's mild to start the new year across the south. into monday, computer weather models suggest there'll be another area of low pressure passing through, butjust how big a feature this

will be, just how deep it will be, remains open to some question. but there will be outbreaks of rain, maybe some snow over high ground in the north, temperatures generally between five and ten degrees. for the first days of the new year, a brief ridge of high pressure, probably around tuesday, giving drier but colder weather. and then, later in the week, weather systems push back in from the atlantic, bringing further bouts of wet weather but, with that, something milder. it looks like most will have double—digit temperatures through a good part of next week, into the start of 2023. that's all from me. bye for now.

this is bbc news. i'm lewis vaughanjones, the headlines. the united states has announced it will require negative covid tests for travellers from china, following growing alarm at the rapid increase in chinese infections. tighter measures have also been announced by italy, japan, taiwan and india amid concern china's case numbers aren't accurate. it's sparked an angry response from beijing. translation: the argument. you mentioned is a biased smear campaign and political manipulation with a hidden agenda, which does not stand up to scrutiny or facts and runs counter to the truth. as people flee kherson, ukraine says russia has carried out more than 30 rocket attacks in the past 2a hours alone. pope francis asks people to pray for his predecessor, benedict the 16th — who he says, is very ill. the vatican says benedict's condition has worsened