Does a viral post on social media offer any verifiable information confirming that a four-year waiting list for superyacht purchases is entirely made up of Ukrainian officials? No, that's not true: No posts making such a claim included any specific, verifiable data. The man who was the first to spread the rumor refused to disclose the name of the shipbuilder who supposedly told him about Ukrainian officials on the waitlist.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X by @Pascal_Laurent on May 27, 2026. The French caption read:
🇺🇦 La liste d'attente de quatre ans pour l'achat de superyachts est entièrement composée de fonctionnaires ukrainiens... C'est ce qu'a révélé Stephen Kuhn, fondateur de la société Take America Back Inc. 'Je viens de parler au téléphone avec un fabricant de superyachts, et les commandes des fonctionnaires ukrainiens et de leurs familles sont déjà programmées pour les quatre prochaines années. Des centaines de millions de dollars en superyachts, tous provenant d'un seul pays. Pendant ce temps, les contribuables occidentaux au Canada, au Royaume-Uni, en Europe, en Amérique et en Australie financent tout cela', a-t-il déclaré. 'Ils ramassent les gens dans la rue pour les envoyer au front, les mobilisent dans l'armée, et les gens se suicident pour ne pas aller à la guerre. Pendant que les fonctionnaires achètent des superyachts. C'est la plus grande opération de blanchiment d'argent de l'histoire moderne', a ajouté Kuhn.
As translated to English by DeepL, that meant:
🇺🇦 The four-year waiting list for superyacht purchases is made up entirely of Ukrainian government officials... This was revealed by Stephen Kuhn, founder of Take America Back Inc. 'I just spoke on the phone with a superyacht builder, and orders from Ukrainian government officials and their families are already booked for the next four years. Hundreds of millions of dollars in superyachts, all coming from a single country. Meanwhile, Western taxpayers in Canada, the UK, Europe, America, and Australia are funding all of this,' he said. 'They're rounding people up off the streets to send them to the front lines, conscripting them into the army, and people are committing suicide to avoid going to war. While government officials are buying superyachts. This is the biggest money-laundering operation in modern history," Kuhn added.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @Pascal_Laurent on X.)
The person quoted in the post was Steven Kuhn (archived here), whose first name was spelled differently. He made the same claim (archived here) one day earlier on Facebook:
(Image source: post by @stevenekuhn on Facebook.)
In his video, Kuhn did not disclose any additional details regarding the purported orders.
On May 28, 2026, Lead Stories reached out to Kuhn via email, asking him to provide verifiable information about the story he told on social media. In particular, that would include such details as the yacht manufacturer's name, documents or specific figures related to the purported orders.
Kuhn declined twice that same day, saying that he "cannot divulge any such info without putting my contact at risk".
In the world of yachts, the owner's information is not readily available. People may buy vessels through companies from jurisdictions where the principal beneficiary does not reside, and those jurisdictions do not always align with the ship's flag, which can be changed multiple times.
There is no universal definition of a superyacht, but sources generally agree that it's a larger yacht whose length exceeds either 24 meters, which is 79 feet, or 30 meters, which is 100 feet (archived here).
Boat International (archived here), a magazine specializing in superyachts, maintains a comprehensive database (archived here) that catalogues the vessels falling into this category. Yet, it does not disclose the owners.
Only a share of superyacht owners (archived here) was identified by maritime enthusiasts (archived here). That registry, however, includes the already-built vessels, not order lists tying superyachts to the waiting customers.
As of late May 2026, no credible news outlets (archived here) reported anything that would have remotely supported the claim reviewed in this fact check.
Similar claims personally targeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and others who worked on his team have been debunked by Lead Stories on multiple occasions. Those articles can be found here and here, for example.
