Russia Wanted To Sell A Moscow Airport For $1.7 Billion, No One Bought It. A 50% Sale Followed

Russia has sold one of the country's largest and most modern airports, Moscow's Domodedovo, to a subsidiary of another Moscow airport, Sheremetyevo, for 66 billion roubles ($869 million), a Russian state trading platform showed on Thursday. The auction was the second attempt to sell the airport, which was nationalised at the Prosecutor General's request in June 2025, the latest in a series of state asset seizures. The first auction on January 20, which set a starting price of 132.3 billion roubles ($1.742 billion), failed after the sole biddder was disqualified. The second auction allowed bids below that same starting price.

The sole participant, Perspektiva, a firm 100% owned by Sheremetyevo, won the auction at a price of 66.13 billion roubles ($871 million), the lowest possible price under the rules of the auction, Russian corporate filings and a document published on the Russian state property trading platform showed. Domodedovo needs investment, has 75 billion roubles ($987 million) of debt, and is currently loss-making, Sheremetyevo's CEO Mikhail Vasilenko told Russian media last week.

The majority stake in Sheremetyevo International Airport, the country's largest airport, is held by a Russian company, registered in the Kaliningrad region. Its ownership is not public. Before December 2022 it was owned by businessman Arkady Rotenberg, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his partners.

($1 = 75.9500 roubles)

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