Throughout the Putin era, the owners of Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport fought off every takeover attempt. Wartime nationalization proved their undoing.
Dmitry Kamenshchik, now the former owner of Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport, isn’t giving up. After losing every appeal in the nationalization of one of Russia’s largest airports — and after the country’s Supreme Court declined to review his complaint — he is once again challenging the state’s seizure of the asset and its transfer to entities linked to Vladimir Putin’s longtime associate Arkady Rotenberg. A hearing date has yet to be set. But another rejection, which seems all but certain, would likely mark the end of Kamenshchik’s long battle with the Kremlin — a fight that has stretched across much of Putin’s quarter-century in power. Meduza looks back at the history of that protracted struggle.
From shuttle hub to major airport
Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport didn’t begin as a sleek European aviation hub. In the early 1990s, it was a launchpad for shuttle traders — small-scale entrepreneurs ferrying cheap consumer goods from China to sell at Russia’s sprawling open-air markets.
At the center of this transformation was Dmitry Kamenshchik, a native of Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, he had already studied power engineering, served in the army, and worked in the Urals — and was back in school, studying philosophy at Moscow State University. But the upheaval of the 1990s proved more compelling than academia. With partners, he began building cargo operations out of Domodedovo, leasing several Soviet-designed Ilyushin aircraft. Business boomed in the era of shuttle trading.
By the end of the decade, Kamenshchik’s company, East Line, controlled not only cargo operations but the airport itself. In 1998, the firm secured a 75-year lease; a year later, it bought the facility at auction. Almost immediately after formalizing control, it faced its first serious clash with the state: in 2000, several East Line managers — though not Kamenshchik — were charged with smuggling.
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Five years later, Russia’s Federal Property Management Agency (Rosimushchestvo) sought to reacquire Domodedovo, challenging both the airport complex’s privatization and the runway lease agreement. At the time, media reports suggested that then-Moscow Region Governor Boris Gromov and Vladimir Putin intervened on the owners’ behalf. According to the business newspaper Vedomosti, Putin endorsed Gromov’s letter on the matter, writing: “Laws must be observed, but the state’s actions must not lead to the destruction of a successfully functioning business.”
Both cases — the smuggling prosecution and the privatization dispute — concluded in 2008 with a qualified victory for Kamenshchik. The managers in the smuggling case received suspended sentences, and courts ultimately rejected the demand to nationalize the airport, though runway lease payments were significantly increased.
The next wave of pressure followed a deadly attack at the airport. On January 24, 2011, a suicide bomber detonated an improvised explosive device in Domodedovo’s arrivals hall, killing 37 people. Investigators charged several airport employees with failure to ensure adequate security. At the same time, authorities began scrutinizing the airport’s highly complex ownership structure: Domodedovo was managed by foreign companies registered in offshore jurisdictions. Ultimately, only rank-and-file staff were formally charged, and even those charges were later dropped.
But in the summer of 2015, investigators unexpectedly reopened the probe into the attack. Three Domodedovo managers were placed in pre-trial detention, and in early 2016, Kamenshchik himself was put under house arrest. Within months, however, the case was closed for “lack of evidence” of a crime; investigators concluded the managers hadn’t violated transport security requirements.
For nearly a decade, the Kremlin refrained from such overt assaults, but pressure on the owners never fully disappeared. Domodedovo increasingly required a third runway — the existing two were already operating at capacity. Yet in Russia, runway construction is the state’s prerogative, not that of private airport operators. Authorities repeatedly declined to proceed with the project, prioritizing the competing Moscow airport, Sheremetyevo. As a result, Domodedovo’s development began to stall.
Until then, despite recurring legal challenges, Kamenshchik’s business had flourished. The 2010s marked its peak: Kamenshchik built a modern terminal, overhauled processes, and Domodedovo consistently ranked among Europe’s largest and fastest-growing hubs.
But Sheremetyevo was rising in parallel. A modern hub was built there for Russia’s largest airline, Aeroflot, and major international airlines were steadily drawn in. In 2011, companies linked to billionaire and longtime Putin associate Arkady Rotenberg entered the business. By 2016, they had secured a controlling stake in Sheremetyevo.
Competition intensified both commercially — with aggressive offers to airlines — and politically, through lobbying. In the lobbying battle, Sheremetyevo clearly had the advantage. Meanwhile, Domodedovo faced mounting congestion along with constant regulatory scrutiny from the Prosecutor General’s Office, relevant ministries, the tax authorities, and the FSB.
Inspections dragged on — and then, in 2025, events accelerated. In January of that year, the Prosecutor General’s Office filed a lawsuit seeking to transfer the airport to state ownership, arguing that Domodedovo’s management structure violated laws governing strategic enterprises because its owners, in addition to Russian citizenship, held foreign passports. In February, a court temporarily transferred the asset to the state. In June, the Moscow Region Arbitration Court finalized the nationalization.
Then, at the start of 2026, two privatization auctions were held. On January 20, the airport was offered for 132 billion rubles ($1.7 billion); no buyers emerged. The price was then cut in half. On January 29, a Sheremetyevo-linked company acquired Domodedovo for 66.1 billion rubles ($855.9 million).
Russian business 101
Dmitry Kamenshchik clearly wielded significant political influence over the years; otherwise, fending off repeated state attacks would have been impossible. The public face of that influence was billionaire Valery Kogan.
Kogan’s name first surfaced in connection with Domodedovo when the state demanded that the airport’s owners be identified. For years, Kamenshchik declined to disclose that information. Eventually, however, he acknowledged that the airport belonged to two people: himself and Kogan. The size of their respective stakes was never made public, but Kogan became chairman of the supervisory board. In an interview with Vedomosti, Kamenshchik said of him: “In our hierarchy, he is senior to me and is my boss.”
Once Kogan’s role became public, he began appearing in headlines — mostly foreign ones. Coverage focused on his lifestyle: building what was reported to be the most expensive mansion in Israel, buying up hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of property in New York and Connecticut, and hosting his granddaughter’s lavish wedding in London, where Elton John and Mariah Carey performed.
What kind of lobbying muscle Kogan actually provided remains unclear. There is little solid evidence of high-level connections. “There were once rumors that Kogan was linked to the then-head of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev,” Andrei Yakovlev, an associate researcher at Harvard University’s Davis Center, told Meduza. “And that Domodedovo [allegedly] lost protection as a result of [Patrushev’s position] weakening” — a reference to May 2024, when Patrushev was demoted from the powerful post of Security Council secretary. Whether that tie really existed, Yakovlev argues, matters less than the broader pattern: “the transfer of assets into the hands of a narrowing circle of Putin’s associates, as a reward for loyalty amid the loss of foreign holdings.”
Even with passenger traffic down, acquiring a second major airport strengthens the Rotenbergs’ position. And it came cheaply. Alexander Ponomarenko — Arkady Rotenberg’s business partner in Sheremetyevo — told Forbes Russia that after the 2011 attack, he’d offered Kogan $3.8 billion for Domodedovo. This time, the purchase price was about $860 million.
Domodedovo does carry heavy debt — roughly 70 billion rubles ($906.5 million). During the period when the asset was being wrested from Kamenshchik, its finances deteriorated sharply: losses reached 6.8 billion rubles ($88 million) in 2023 and 10 billion rubles ($129.5 million) in 2025. Still, Rotenberg will likely find it easier to negotiate debt restructuring and repayment terms with the state.
Some of that debt may ultimately be repaid with funds the state seeks to recover from Kamenshchik and Kogan. Prosecutors allege they siphoned funds out of Russia under the guise of repaying foreign creditors and paying dividends. In October 2025, a Russian court ordered the former owners to pay more than 3 billion rubles ($38.8 million). Both men are likely able to cover the penalties; in recent years, they’ve sold off many of their prominent foreign assets.
“It’s a good acquisition for the Rotenbergs,” Yakovlev said. “First, buying Sheremetyevo’s direct competitor creates leverage over airlines. In a situation where there’s effectively nowhere else to go, fees can be raised. Second, traffic flows can be optimized more cheaply. Even now, despite reduced load, there are boarding queues at Sheremetyevo. Issues related to drone attacks can also be managed more efficiently.”
Companies linked to the Rotenbergs have emerged as major beneficiaries of the current wave of nationalizations. Now, Domodedovo has become another piece of their business empire.
