A $325 million superyacht seized by the United States from a sanctioned Russian oligarch arrived in San Diego Bay on Monday.

The 106-metre-long Amadea flew an American flag as it sailed past the retired aircraft carrier USS Midway and under the Coronado Bridge.

The Department of Justice said the Amadea was safely docked after a transpacific journey of more than 8,047 kilometres “and will remain in the custody of the US government, pending its anticipated forfeiture and sale".

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The FBI linked the Amadea to the Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, and the vessel became a target of Task Force KleptoCapture, launched in March to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs to put pressure on Russia to end the war in Ukraine.

The US said Kerimov secretly bought the vessel last year through various shell companies.

READ MORE: Paige waited so long for an Australian visa she grew up

The US won a legal battle in Fiji to take the Cayman Islands-flagged superyacht earlier this month.

The Amadea made a stop in Honolulu Harbor en route to the US mainland.

“The successful seizure and transport of Amadea would not have been possible without extraordinary cooperation from our foreign partners in the global effort to enforce US sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war in Ukraine,” the Justice Department said.

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It took Australian immigration officials a decade to process Wendy Van Breda and her daughter Paige's visa applications.

Paige was 15 years old when the pair first came to Australia in 2011. She is now 26.

Last March, Wendy and Paige finally got an answer from the Department of Home Affairs, but it wasn't what they were expecting.

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The pair were told that because Paige had now grown up, and was not considered to be her mother's dependent, both of their visa applications had been rejected.

"We were so shocked. It kind of felt like our whole world was coming down," Paige said of the decision.

Wendy and Paige were both born in Zimbabwe, but the political and economic unrest in the African nation meant most of their family moved overseas, first to the United Kingdom and then Australia.

Wendy's only surviving parent, her mother, and all of her siblings – three brothers – live in Queensland, having been granted permanent residency.

Hoping to be close to their family, Wendy, who is a single mother, and Paige moved from the UK to Brisbane in 2011.

The pair applied for a remaining relative visa, which is open to immigrants whose immediate family members all live in Australia.

The remaining relative visa has the longest processing time of any Australian visa. 

When Wendy and Paige applied for the visa in 2011, the wait time was 10 years.

It has since ballooned out to 50 years.

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Wendy and Paige have been living in Australia on temporary bridging visas for the past decade. 

Having appealed the department's decision to reject their visas last year, they are still here on a bridging visa, but face the prospect of being sent back to the UK if their appeal is unsuccessful.

"We just want to be with our family, that's all we want. It will destroy us if we had to leave. I don't know what we will do," Wendy said.

Wendy said she and Paige had spent the past decade building their lives in Australia, and now considered it their home.

Both she and her daughter had willingly made sacrifices to stay in Australia with the hope of being granted permanent residency, Wendy said.

Their bridging visas have allowed them to work and study but still come with restrictions.

"It's been really hard because, with Paige, we had to pay international school fees – it was $13,000 a year for her to go to a public high school," Wendy said. 

"Paige always had a dream of being a teacher, but she can't go to uni here because she would need to pay full fees and she can't get a student loan or anything like that."

After graduating from high school, Paige went to TAFE instead to get an early childhood diploma and now works in a childcare centre.

"It was the closest option I could get to being a teacher. It's been hard having some options being taken away but I'm grateful that I've been able to live here with my family," Paige said.

Wendy said she always expected their visas to be approved eventually and was stunned when they got their refusal notice in March last year.

"It's always been kind of at the back of our minds about waiting for the visa but we weren't so worried and we didn't ever think it would actually be denied," Wendy said.

"Our immigration agent was shocked too."

In its refusal notification to Wendy and Paige, seen by 9news.com.au, the Department of Home Affairs said that because Paige was no longer Wendy's dependent they both had a near relative who was not an Australian citizen or permanent resident – each other.

"It's just crazy, we need to be with our family," Wendy said. 

"Also, if the department hadn't taken so long (to process our visa application) this never would have happened."

Visa wait times 'a matter of urgency'

Last week, 9news.com.au reported on the desperate plight of other remaining relative visa applicants who face a decades-long wait for an answer on whether they can stay in Australia permanently.

While the remaining relative visa has the longest wait time, at 50 years, the processing times for many other visas have also blown out over the last decade. 

According to the Department of Home Affairs, parent visas now take about 30 years to process, orphan visas 6.3 years and carer visas 4.5 years.

The long wait times for family and partner visas were the subject of a Senate inquiry last year. 

The inquiry's final report, released in April this year, recommended that the Department of Home Affairs develop a "long-term strategy to update its system for the processing of visas" as a "matter of urgency".

While Labor's Immigration Minister Andrew Giles declined to comment to 9news.com.au on the remaining relative visa wait times he said tackling the visa backlog left by the Coalition government was an urgent priority.

"In terms of the extraordinary delays we've seen in visa processing, this is a real priority for me and an Albanese Labor government," Giles said.

"Whether it relates to humanitarian, family reunion, or skilled visas, we need to do much better."

'I'll be dead by then'

Nicola Clements has been waiting eight years so far for her remaining relative visa to be processed, having applied in 2014 after coming out from the UK.

"This was the only visa I could apply for as I didn't qualify for the skilled visa," she said.

When Nicola first applied for the visa, she was told the wait would be 16 years. She said she was appalled when she was informed a few years ago the wait was now 50 years.

"I'm 53. If I need to wait 50 years for my visa to be processed, I'll be dead by then."

Nicola has since become the carer for her 84-year-old mother, who she lives with in Bunbury. 

She said she had considered applying for a carer visa, but it would involve starting the visa process again and waiting the 4.5 years it takes, on average, to be granted a carer visa.

Nicola, who works in the healthcare sector, said living on a bridging visa meant she had been unable to buy her own home, despite having a deposit ready to do so.

"My immediate issue is housing, because I can't seem to get a rental that is long term," she said.

"Every year or every two my mum and I have to move. My mum is 84 and it's a lot for her to keep moving.

"She keeps asking me, 'When do you think we're going to have to move again?'"

Nicola said living on a temporary visa was stressful and weighed on her mind.

"If they cancel my visa, I would have to go back to the UK and leave mum, she would be stuffed," she said.

"I also wouldn't have a job, a house, any family. I've sort of lost contact with everybody there. 

"I try not to push it away and not think about it because I get so depressed thinking about it."

Contract reporter Emily McPherson at em********@******om.au

Scores of civilians were feared killed or wounded in a Russian missile strike Monday on a crowded shopping mall in Ukraine's central city of Kremenchuk, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post that the number of victims was “unimaginable,” citing reports that more than 1000 civilians were inside at the time of the attack.

Images from the scene showed giant plumes of black smoke from the shopping centre engulfed in flames, as emergency crews rushed in and onlookers watched in distress.

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At least 11 people were dead and more than 40 wounded, according to the regional governor, Dmytro Lunin, who said that rescuers were continuing to comb the smoldering debris for more victims.

The strike unfolded as the leaders of the world's major economies get ready to pursue new sanctions on Russia, including a price cap on oil and higher tariffs on goods.

Meanwhile, the US prepared to announce the purchase of an advanced surface-to-air missile system for Kyiv, and NATO planned to increase the size of its rapid-reaction forces nearly eightfold to 300,000 troops.

Zelenskyy said the target presented “no threat to the Russian army” and had “no strategic value.” He accused Russia of sabotaging “people’s attempts to live a normal life, which make the occupiers so angry.”

The Ukrainian military said the shopping center was hit by missiles fired by Russian Tu-22M3 long-range bombers from the skies over Russia’s western Kursk region.

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The secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, said that one missile hit the shopping centre and another struck a sports arena in Kremenchuk.

The Russian strike carried echoes of attacks earlier in the war that caused large numbers of civilian casualties — such as one in March on a Mariupol theater where many civilians had holed up, killing an estimated 600, and another in April on a train station in eastern Kramatorsk that left at least 59 people dead.

“Russia continues to take out its impotence on ordinary civilians. It is useless to hope for decency and humanity on its part,” Zelenskyy said.

Mayor Vitaliy Maletskiy wrote on Facebook that the attack “hit a very crowded area, which is 100 per cent certain not to have any links to the armed forces.”

The attack happened as Russia was mounting an all-out assault on the last Ukrainian stronghold in eastern Ukraine's Luhansk province, “pouring fire” on the city of Lysychansk from the ground and air, according to the local governor.

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Russian forces appeared to step up an offensive centering on trying to wrest the eastern Donbas region from Ukraine after forcing government troops out of the neighboring city of Sievierodonetsk in recent days.

Western leaders, meanwhile, pledged steadfast and continued support for Kyiv. NATO will agree to deliver further military support to Ukraine — including secure communication and anti-drone systems — when its leaders convene in Spain for a summit, according to the military alliance's secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg.

To the west of Lysychansk on Monday, the mayor of the city of Sloviansk — potentially the next major battleground — said Russian forces fired cluster munitions on the city after dawn, including one that hit a residential neighborhood.

Authorities said the number of dead and wounded had yet to be confirmed. The Associated Press saw one fatality: A man’s body lay hunched over a car door frame, his blood pooling onto the ground from chest and head wounds.

The blast blew out most windows in the surrounding apartment blocks and the cars parked below, littering the ground with broken glass.

“Everything is now destroyed. We are the only people left living in this part of the building. There is no power," said local resident Valentina Vitkovska, in tears as she spoke about the blast.

"I can’t even call to tell others what had happened to us.”

Overall, Zelenskyy's office said at least six civilians were killed and 31 others wounded as part of intense Russian shelling against various Ukrainian cities over the past 24 hours — including Kyiv and major cities in the country’s south and east, but not counting the attack in Kremenchuk and the shelling of the eastern city of Kharkiv where at least three people were killed and another 15 were wounded.

It said Russian forces fired rockets that killed two people and wounded five overnight in and near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and continued to target the key southern port of Odesa. A missile attack destroyed residential buildings and wounded six people, including a child, it said.

In Lysychansk, at least five high-rise buildings in the city and the last road bridge were damaged over the past day, the regional governor said. A crucial highway linking the city to government-held territory to the south was rendered impassable by shelling.

The city had a prewar population of around 100,000, approximately one-tenth of whom remain.

Analysts say that Lysychansk’s location high on the banks of the Siverskiy Donets River gives a major advantage to the city’s Ukrainian defenders.

“It’s a very hard nut to crack. The Russians could spend many months and much effort storming Lysychansk,” said military analyst Oleh Zhdanov.

In other developments, in Germany’s Bavarian Alps, leaders of the Group of Seven countries unveiled plans to seek new sanctions and pledged to continue supporting Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”

In a joint statement on Monday after they held a session by video link with Zelenskyy, the leaders underlined their “unwavering commitment to support the government and people of Ukraine in their courageous defense of their country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

The US appeared ready to respond to Zelenskyy’s call for more air defence systems after Russian troops hit Kyiv with long-range missiles on Sunday. Washington was expected to announce the purchase of an advanced surface-to-air missile system for Ukraine.

In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced the plans to greatly expand the alliance's rapid-reaction forces as part of its response to an “era of strategic competition.” The NATO response force currently has about 40,000 soldiers.

Britian's defence ministry said Russia is likely to rely increasingly on reserve forces in the coming weeks of the war.

Analysts have said a call-up of reservists by Russia could vastly alter the balance in the war but could also come with political consequences for President Vladimir Putin’s government.