My guess it’s tomfoolery by a state actor for him to be able to get on board let alone get a ticket.
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I wonder if it was a one-way ticket.
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Re the Moscow stadium rally a few days ago:
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Won’t they need those flags, for draping over soldiers’ coffins?
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Won’t they just throw their bodies in a mass grave for failing Putin?
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He was German and even never travelled to Russia, which, by the way, isn’t communist since 1991.
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TBH, I can get past the initial CBP guard station at the Tijuana/San Ysidro border just by flashing my SENTRI card (which expired a couple of weeks ago). They don’t really look at it until I get to the official checkpoint. 
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The maintenance on these things is insane, and since they’re basically one offs. Sold in a fairly sketchy way by companies who specialize in “everything is gold plated” it’s apparently pretty common for them to need fixing and a refit not long after they initially sail. And pretty frequently there after.
I grew up near one of the North East US’s deepest harbors, one of the few places boats like this can dock up outside major ports. You’d occasionally see full sized cruise ships pulling in, hiding from weather in this tiny village. And mega-yachts were pretty regular feature, including good ole Stephen Spielberg’s insane boat.
So I’ve known plenty of people who worked on board these things, or worked in that industry. That could just be part of the process. Or “under service” could be a lie.
Not that Putin would go this route. But apparently these boats are so expensive to run, they’re often treated as a business. Rented out for parties, and TV/Film shoots, or spending a chunk of the year leased out to filthy rich but not rich enough to own it folks. They burn tens of thousands of dollars an hour in fuel, and any time you’re using it you’re paying 50-100 staff.
There was an Oligarch’s mega yacht parked in that little village for nearly a year once. When it wasn’t used for Hollywood parties and start up launches. Workers were bringing in materials, and big engine parts. Despite the fact that it was supposedly brand new.
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Not sure if this is the right place but he first went to Ukraine and then he fled there. Seems he’s not the freedom fighter the rioters claim to be.
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Smells like rinse and wash to me.
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I guess Manafort had to go take care of his hidden assets before they disappeared.
Or he has a secret meeting in Dubai to consult with some of Putin’s people.
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That’s why they brought the mobile crematoria with them, yeah?
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Even better way to hide the evidence of their failures.
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Manafort knows that the “Get Out of Jail Free” card Biff gave him is only good for specific past crimes. He also knows that FSB area experts on Ukraine fleeing Russia ahead of their boss’s wrath will be bringing along files to buy themselves plea deals from the ICC – files that have a good chance of containing more evidence of his malfeasance.
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I would imagine there was something like that going on.
But some of the mechanics and like carpenters and shit who were working on it were regulars of mine at a bar I was running at the time. Apparently the boat did not run, that’s why it was there that long. And the work was being done. The carpenters were apparently making the bedrooms even gaudier, and the pool was fucked or something.
But everyone definitely suspected they were pouring money into it, to extract through rental fees. At a minimum loading upgrades up on these is a way to do that loading wealth into physical assets thing these guys are so obsessed with.
ETA: What I mean is it clearly wasn’t a simple Goodfellas situation. Materials and parts go in the front and mysteriously disappear through the back.
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If you have mobile crematoriums, you don’t have coffins that need flags draped.
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