Alisher Usmanov's public relations service said on Friday that he is not the owner of the yacht Irina VU, which is under international sanctions and since it sailed out of a Croatian seaport eight persons are under criminal investigation.

In its request for a correction, the PR service also said that Mr. Usmanov was in no way connected to the yacht’s disappearance from the Croatian marina.

According to them, many media outlets which earlier reported on the yacht’s disappearance have since released corrections or apologies over the wrong reporting on this topic.

The yacht which media linked to Usmanov, a close friend of Russian President Vladmir Putin, was under EU, US and UK sanctions, and was banned from sailing out. It was anchored on Murter island, from where it sailed to Dubrovnik and then on to Turkey last October, having passed Croatian police, border and port authority control.